


After Aperture

by Faerendipitous



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Other, TIME TO RESURRECT THIS THING HERE WE GO
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-14 16:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9194036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faerendipitous/pseuds/Faerendipitous
Summary: Nothing could ever make her forget how much she'd hated him. No amount of brain-damage could erase those terrible moments from her memory, she thought as she stood there with him - the man who fell from space. But these were new moments, just for them.





	1. Drink

Chell set the bottle on the countertop. Her day had been long and made especially unpleasant by the sudden panic attack brought on by the smell of ammonia in the grocery market, that smell not so different from the unnatural sterilized smell of Aperture. Her chest had constricted and her breathing became deep and measured and quick and she was so sure she could hear the innocent, child-like "I see you," from the isle next to her. She nearly took down three shelves trying to crush the imaginary turret without the help of the Aperture Science Handheld Dual Portal Gun, and the knot of embarrassment and anxiety still resided in her chest. The deep red liquid poured gracefully from the slim glass bottle. She hadn't truly intended to ever drink it – she'd found it in the cellar when they'd moved into the quickly abandoned home – but some days, she decided, it was more than called for.

It wasn't anything fancy. A generous amount of wine in a red plastic cup, to calm her nerves and maybe even help her to fall asleep that night – God knew she would lie awake for hours after one of those episodes. She took a sip of the wine, almost unpleasantly strong and biting, and threw open the front screen door to sit under the night sky. The porch light was off, which was why she didn't notice Wheatley at first. When she did, it sent a jolt through her. She hadn't even heard him leave. She sat down next to him, in turn startling him, though he settled down easily enough. He shrugged his jacket a little closer as a crisp wind blew across the pair. It was summer, and the air was warm, a pleasant breeze that rustled the miles of wheat that stretched before the tiny home like a golden ocean, constantly moving and _alive_ , so unlike how things were always moving back at the facility. This was natural; _right_ , not cold and mechanical like the way the walls moved, or the short, jerky movements of the turrets, who's heads twitched like birds' at the slightest sound.

This was organic, real, though the android still seemed to have difficulty grasping that concept. Having spent his entire artificial life in the facility under fluorescent lights and temperature-regulated atmosphere, he found it so unnerving that things actually moved on their own, without any lunatic woman bending them to her will. He relaxed a little when the wind died down, grip loosening on the brown fabric that he relied on to survive in such a volatile environment. He found it maddening at first, because he'd come from such a _constant_ environment, to be dropped into the middle of a place where the sky could never make up its mind about whether it wanted clouds or not, or – God forbid – rain. Rain was the worst, and he refused to go anywhere near the doors or windows in the house when the sky decided it wanted to try to short circuit him. But tonight wasn't one of those terrifying night when the entire earth seemed to shake from some mad power that reminded him so much of _Her_ fury and the darkness was lit up in a fantastic and terrible surge of electricity. Tonight was cold and crisp and clear and he could still see the stars and the tiny sliver or moon that provided just enough light to their small wooden porch. Enough light so that, when he looked at Chell, he could see her looking up at the stars too. They'd both been so close to the stars, once. Granted, the stars they saw in the night sky were literally _millions_ and _millions_ of miles outside of the very _edge_ of the solar system, but in any case, they had been far too close to enjoy them as peacefully as they could here on Earth.

"They're so beautiful from a safe distance, aren't they?" she asked, giving a voice to his thoughts.

That was another thing he was still getting used to. Her voice, withheld for so long during her stay in that madhouse he once called home, he hadn't thought it even existed. But there it was, clear as the sky that stretched forever before them, dipping down to meet the horizon. He nodded sagely, though everything he had told him he would never love the night sky like he hoped he would, back in the days when he dreamed of escaping Aperture. They were too familiar, and they brought back memories he'd tried _so hard_ to delete from his hard drive.

With another curious glance over to his friend, he spied the red plastic cup that she held between her knees. "What's there, luv?" he asked, gesturing to the odd drink. He honestly hadn't seen anything like it before. It was thick and dark and gave off such a pungent odor, he found himself recoiling slightly as the breeze wafted it in his direction. Whatever it was, it was highly unpleasant, though that didn't seem to register with Chell.

She shrugged off his question. "Cup of wine. Found a bottle in the cellar yesterday." Her voice was slow and soft, hard and breathy at the same time, and he felt he would never get used to it.

"Wine. I know about that. In fact, I think I have an information file on it. Should be in here somewhere…" his voice trailed off as he concentrated on digging through the numerous information files stored in his system. "Alcohol! The engineers were, ah, very fond of that, I recall. Never understood it, though, with you humans. Stuff is lethal, easy enough to understand. Mess you up right, won't it?" he peered into the cup curiously, nervously wondering if Chell had damaged herself with it.

She shook her head, the wine beginning to mellow her out. She took another swig from the cup. "Frankly, it's worth it." She said. "You'd think after two years outside of that Hell, I would stop hallucinating."

"Must be the brain damage," he said under his breath, though it was intended for her to hear, as it was a bit of a joke. He knew she would get like this at times, mentally beating herself up for not being able to let go of her time at Aperture as if it had been a tea party. He always tried to cheer her up as much as he could, but it seemed like everything he said to her was funnier in his head. He received no response, no soft chuckle or even a smile from her; she only took another sip from the cup. He drew he knees closer to his chest, which wasn't a difficult task, given how absurdly _long_ they were. His whole body was absurd. Excessive limbs and a height that, he imagined, would be considered monstrous among other humans, if they ever encountered any. He was a towering six foot seven inches and was constantly looking down on his companion, in a strictly figurative sense, of course, since he thought the world of Chell. "I just don't get it." He reasserted. "If you _know_ it damages your system, why consume it? That's like me saying I'd fancy a nighttime walk in one of those loud rain storms that happen out here."

Chell shook her head again. Concepts like wine had been ingrained in Human culture since saner, ancient times. How was she supposed to explain it to him? She sipped her drink pensively and stared up at the stars. The waving wheat in front of her brought the nostalgia of her first day above the surface, her first day of freedom from Aperture. He cheeks were slightly flushed from the wine. The words tumbled out before she even knew she'd said them. "It's sort of the like the Euphoric Solution."

She stopped. The knot in her chest returned, immediately sobering her from her slight tipsy. Those words tasted like pure poison, and she could feel them carving a hallow inside her chest as she remembered things best left forgotten. She sloshed the remainder of her drink – about half the cup – around uncertainly. The time she had spent in Aperture had scarred her deeply, but she managed, day by day, and things became easier over time. But Wheatley… He told her that he was right as rain, it was all in the past, but she could still see it in him, the way he would come out on nights like tonight and stare at the stars, the way he was so very jumpy when he talked to her, too eager to please. Chell knew that he remembered everything just as painfully as she did. She looked sheepishly up at her friend.

His eyes were closed, a slight crease between his brow and his hands clenched on the hem of his jacket. The synthetic skin of his knuckles was white with tension and a higher-pressure grip than anything any human could ever dream to possess. His lips traced unintelligible words, silently, but she had seen him do this enough times to know that he was attempting another memory dump. It never worked, but he had always been blindly optimistic and, frankly, desperate enough to need the optimism.

She raised the cup to her lips again, feeling guilty for causing his android body's interpretation of a panic attack and wanting to explain to him how completely _different_ the two were. It had been a poor analogy. All she had meant was that the depressant qualities of alcohol in the human body produce a slight giddiness, enough to ease someone of the day's tensions. It, in comparison, really wasn't _anything_ like the Solution…

Her mind stopped the thought, her body froze mid sip.

That wasn't true.

It was the same, in all its practicality, as the Euphoric Solution. Both created a chemical reaction in the body – albeit, hers a human body – to promote feelings of bliss. The wine _did_ relax her, but she knew it was only short lived. The knot in her chest returned not long after her drink, leaving a longing for the almost carefree serenity she had felt while tipsy. She had spent since she could remember in a state of panic and hyperarousal, and she found herself craving that _feeling._ Her chest tightened in a slight fear; he was just as frightened now as she had been when he had turned on her. It was possible to build an addiction to alcohol, just as Wheatley had to the Solution, and over time, become numb to its effects. It wasn't even a matter of mental capacity, it was proven. And after that point, what would stand between you and that _feeling_?

That sickeningly _perfect_ feeling.

Wheatley remembered it all too well and imagined, only briefly, that he could still feel the burning itch in the back of his systems as he recalled how bloody happy he'd been. The files he had accessed told him of something called alcoholism, an addiction to the feeling that the substance would produce. It was so close to him, that overpowering addiction, the desperate need to _feel good_ , so desperate that you would do anything, not thinking straight, anything that might make you feel _better._

Murder wasn't out of the question.

And there she was, sitting right next to him, a sweetly painful reminder of just how deep he'd been pulled under, that he had actively tried to murder the one sentient being who hadn't patronized him, who had treated him with respect, who had been his _friend._

She lowered the cup, resting it on her knee as she looked at him again. He was trembling, curled in on himself and hardly even producing real words anymore. His eyes were screwed tighter and his fingers twitched as he let go of his jacket and ran a shaky hand through his honey colored hair and over his forehead, knocking his glasses slightly askew.

She reached up and caught his hand as he made to grab at his jacket again. His eyes flew open in shock at the unexpected contact, immediately looking away from her upturned face. His lips still traced the useless attempts for the memory dump, but slower, less frantic, and as his gaze came to rest on the hem of the jacket he was twisting between his fingers, she smiled gently at him and lifted the cup for him to see. He recoiled, shying away from the ghost of that gnawing, burning itch that had driven him to insanity once upon a time. He looked at her in terrified wonder, half begging her not to drink any more of that poison, half begging her to keep it as far away from him as possible.

With a quick movement of the wrist, Chell tossed the contents of the cup, the wine soaring through the air, collected in little globules like a blood red Conversion Gel, across the porch and into a small patch of grass right before the wheat with a satisfying _plap!_

Wheatley's body relaxed when she placed the cup at her feet and attached herself to his arm, scooting closer and rubbing his shoulder in small circles, a reassuring gesture that he had often shown to her, on those nights where their memories got the better of them.

After a moment, his quiet mutterings had ceased, and the two mused together over thoughts of the future, the endless possibilities, like the endless stars that twinkled against an inky sky, like the endless miles of wheat with a small house sitting in the middle, with an odd pair sitting on the porch, and a red cup sitting, forgotten, at their feet.


	2. For Science

Chell sat the book in her lap. Her shoulders were hunched forward and a slight crease had formed on her brow. It was late at night – she wasn't sure how late, as the room lacked a clock – and the light of the numerous candles strategically positioned around her bed were simultaneously keeping her wide awake with their warm light and lulling her to sleep with the thick smoke that filled the tiny bedroom.

It had taken her months to allow the candles to burn, the stiff, sweet scent reminding her to much of the neurotoxin that had almost taken her life on several different occasions. It was a slow, entirely uphill battle, purging herself of any remaining fear and learning how to live normally again; a battle that Wheatley had often suffered the brunt of. The flames were a subconscious reminder of that, and how she had knocked him flat on his back in a mad rush to put out the first candle he lit and air out the room.

She had elbowed him in the chest and, while the contact had been brief (He had fallen back, startled) the abrupt contact with his metal components has left an impressive bruise and the inability to bend her arm for a full day afterwards. A painful reminder that, as much as he seemed it, he wasn't human.

But as she refocused her attention on the book in her lap, she found herself recanting that last statement. He was, for all his intents and purposes, entirely human. The book was proof.

* * *

It had been last week that she and Wheatley had went out scavenging together – a rare occurrence that was permitted only by fair weather. He'd come back after a good twenty minutes with absolutely nothing, which was a shock. Any other excursion they had together, he ended up bringing home scores of trinkets, things that had intrigued him. Chell was secretly grateful that he had such a child-like wonder at the simplest things. Before he had come to live with her, the house had been impersonal, completely barren and _very_ Chell – she only kept what she needed to survive. Now that he'd been with her for almost a year, the house was cluttered, every shelf and cabinet proudly displaying some discovery of his or another. This world was entirely new to him, and he was always excited to show her what he'd found.

But the book was different.

He had tried to hide it from her – arms folded neatly behind his back, holding it in place, safe from her sight – but she was a bit cleverer than that.

"What do you have?" she asked, picking up a small tin tea kettle. The handle was cracked and the body slightly dented, but it would work, which was what was important to her.

"Nothing," was his reply, which immediately made her look up from the forlorn kettle. What a liar.

She slowly placed the appliance in the old, beat up shopping wagon she used for big hauls to and from town and took two deliberate steps toward him. In turn, he reversed, a nervous smile spreading on his face. "Really, it's nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. If it were something, I'd tell you, wouldn't I?"

He was backing away from her as fast as she was moving toward him. Suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks, causing him to stumble backwards to a slow stop.

Chell's eyes widened, her gaze fixed on a point over Wheatley's shoulder. He immediately became jittery at her horrified expression. "What's the matter, luv?" he asked, the object still clasped securely behind his back.

"Bird!" she pointed behind him and put on her best 'horrified out of my wits' face.

The effect was instant: he dropped the object – a book – and threw his hands protectively over his head, ducking and looking wildly around for the offender. "Where! Where!"

Chell dipped down and picked the book out of the dirt, before he could realize what had just happened. It just so chanced that, though he had been half-hunched over in defense against the bird, he managed to see her reach for it out of the corner of his eye.

He lunged for it, but was several seconds too late. By the time he came to a rest in the dirt, she had already stood and turned the book right side up.

Wheatley stood, shuffling nervously as she examined the book. The item itself was extremely thick, and a hardcover to boot. The pages were thin and glossy. But it was the front cover that made him cringe as she looked at it. It was a red and green, faded with age, with once-bright white announcing the subject matter. It was a text book, a reminder of a school system that no longer existed. Her fingers brushed over the block letter.

Science.

Something inside of the android stopped working momentarily as he saw a shadow pass over her face, darker than any of those ominously huge rain clouds that threaten to electrocute him into oblivion. He was certain that she was going to throw the bloody thing at him. His circuits ran cold as he thought of all the possible things she was going to do to him for trying to invite her nightmares right back into the house. Judging by the way she looked at the book, it was an act of treason that could possibly put them back on square one of 'the trust game.'

Her eyes lifted from the book to stare curiously at him, her eyes roaming his features. She held the book open and just stared at him. It was ridiculously nerve-wracking, Wheatley decided, to be stared down by the woman you knew could shut you off at a moment's notice if she needed to. He glanced nervously between the book and the tips of his boots. He fidgeted incessantly, hands wringing together.

She knew why he wanted the book – he would argue it was because he enjoyed reading; she knew he had trouble reading simple sentences. – It was because he had his freedom. Free of everything that had ever happened to him, between them. Free of Aperture and GLaDOS and free to live in this impossibly vast world. Free to live in a world that he knew absolutely nothing about. He'd spent his entire life underground, in that asylum of a laboratory, before being forcibly torn from Science, which was everything he knew.

He was homesick. So, of course he would attach himself to something as simple as an old class book. Of course he had the _right_ to.

She felt her tensed muscles relax slightly at this. She wasn't mad; she didn't hate him.

She hated science.

But this book… She leafed through the pages. The book was completely devoid of any mention of homicidal computers or neurotoxin or tests or cake.

This book outlined beautiful things, like life and growth and _real_ things. The earth, the trees, the rain…

Chell closed the book with a bang that made her companion jump. With a smile, she handed it back to him. "You can put it in the cart, if you want." She offered.

He chose to clutch it to his chest, instead, as they made their way home.

* * *

"Oi."

Chell looked up at the doorway, which was now being occupied by a lanky British android who was braced up against the woodwork with an unspeakably panicked look in his eyes. "Where'd you put my charging cable? I've been looking for bloody _hours_ and I can't find it anywhere."

She smiled and set the book aside, reaching down to the side of the bed and pulling out one of the drawers in the nightstand. There was only one item stored in the drawer – a tick, long black cable that was curled neatly into little ringlets stacked upon one another. She plucked it out of its place and held it out for him as he came up to her. He grabbed the wire and was about to take off to charge, when his eye caught the book. A tight smile spread across his lips as he bid her goodnight, blowing out the candles and using his flashlight to get back to his bedroom.


	3. Kill the Messenger

Chell walked through the front doors of the house, tossing the heavy duty work gloves onto the kitchen counter. She peeked momentarily into the living room to see Wheatley with his back to her so that she could see the thick black chord protruding from the back of his neck and snaking its way over to the wall, where the plug was secured in the electrical socket. He was curled up on the couch, knees almost to his chin and his hands in loose fists in front of his face, glasses resting on the table in the middle of the living room.

Wheatley hated sleeping. He's lamented to her that it was too much like being shut down. They'd found a compatible power chord in an old hardware store and tested it out that very same night. Immediately upon reawakening, he'd shied away from the unit, muttering to her how it seemed like nothing existed while he was hooked up. All his senses had been cut off and he couldn't so much as twitch a finger while he slept.

Of course, it wasn't a true sleep – it was a pre-programmed feature that shut down all his functions to ensure there was no problem while he was recharging, no complications between programs or manual errors from him moving around too much and breaking the wire off in his port. It was a very convincing act though, and she often found herself walking on eggshells so she wouldn't wake him, despite the fact that the only way to do so would be to disconnect him from the unit.

It usually took him a good five hours to recharge completely, and because the charger wasn't Aperture technology, he could only run for a week on that alone. Chell was surprised – though she figured at this point, she shouldn't have been – at how human his charging system was. On the first three days after a full charge, Wheatley was as chipper and lively as ever, chattering about and functioning well. By the fifth day, she could see a noticeable decrease in how much he talked, and that his eyes glowed a slightly less intense blue. On the sixth day, he began losing focus and slowing down, often repeating himself several times in the space of an hour, having forgotten that he'd asked in the first place. What scared him the most was the spaces of time on the sixth days that he couldn't remember anything at all. Early onset of involuntary shutdown, he'd called it.

On the seventh day…

Chell pursed her lips as she put the bread pan in the oven. They didn't know what he was like on the seventh day, but knowing that his systems preformed so poorly on the sixth day didn't particularly make her want to find out. Wheatley's disapproval of recharging made this a difficult sentiment to uphold. She often had to fight to get him to lie down and let her plug him in. Though, today, she thought happily, he seemed to have made the decision on his own. As silly as it might have sounded, that was a milestone for him.

She bent down, opening the oven and checking the bread. She had one arm up to the elbow in the oven, and almost burnt herself as he screamed. It was brief but deep, loud, and utterly terrified. She stumbled back to land painfully on her tailbone, kicking the oven shut and scrambling around to the living room.

Perhaps in his earlier days on the surface, she would have dismissed it. He was always screaming, then. He screamed at moths, he screamed at lizards, he screamed at almost any forlorn little critter that had wandered obliviously into their home. Sometimes he screamed at inanimate objects. The toaster; the microwave, when it worked. The rain hitting the roof. Chell couldn't count how many times she'd had to reassure him that the roof was in fact there to keep the rain out and that it was doing its job very well – and when they had gotten a leak after two weeks of _nonstop rain_ , she hadn't heard the end of it.

But he was much better, now. He had grown more accustomed to the surface, and slowly learned that not _everything_ was out to get him. He was still jittery when it rained, but that was entirely understandable for him, being able to easily short circuit. Whenever any little animal found its way into the house, he gently shooed it out, after he decided whether or not it would attack him. Chell was worried now that he'd screamed like that for the first time in months. He hadn't even screamed like that when he was dive bombed by a family of birds that had taken up residence on their roof. She turned the corner into the living room.

He was lying peacefully on the couch.

She stood there with a towel in one hand, rubbing the base of her spine and staring confusedly at his 'sleeping' form. What was he screaming ab—?

He did it again, his voice resonating off the walls of the small room as he flipped completely over to face her, falling off of the couch and twisting the chord around his neck in the process.

Chell sprang into action as he shuddered on the floor, her fingers quick to disentangle the rubbery wire. Her heart raced for an unusual reason. She was not so much concerned about him suffocating – Strictly speaking, he didn't need air. His breathing was artificial and merely functioned as an internal fan to cool him down in case he over exerted himself. As he was 'sleeping,' he wasn't doing very much, and a temporary hindering of the fan would not hurt him. But the chord they'd salvaged was already weak and with a force like that he was exerting as he twisted about helplessly asleep, he could very easily snap it in two. Best case scenario, the wire breaks and they find a new one – and even that wasn't a promise. Finding this one had been a miracle. Worst case scenario, the wire itself survives, but the lead bit at the end snaps off, becoming permanently lodged in the back of Wheatley's neck. If that happened, he would never wake up.

Once upon a time, she would have stood there and watched him panic himself to a metaphorical death. But things were so different now that, despite having lived for two years on her own, she didn't want to imagine life without him, her friend.

She sat heavily on his chest as he screamed a third time, his features contorted in agonizing terror before he went limp again. She seized the opportunity and slid off, flipping him onto his side. Her thin fingers grasped at the base of the lead and tugged, feeling the device slide out of place with a series of clicks. She gently set the wire aside and moved the coffee table out of the way, watching him the whole time. His breathing had picked up, his chest rising and falling rapidly and she frowned. He was beginning to overheat. He wasn't even doing anything!

Still on his side, he gave a shuddering sob.

The whirring from his chest slowed, not as loud now as he began waking up.

He started shuffling and eventually was able to prop himself up on the floor, still shaking.

She placed a hand between his shoulder blades, letting him know she was there, sitting cross legged right next to him. At the same moment, the timer went off on the oven. Having come to in such a confused daze, she wasn't sure which one he flinched at, the noise or her touch. "What happened?" she asked, quietly.

He shook his head, trying to quell the fear that surged through his circuits. "I-I don't… _know_." He said, shakily, allowing himself to be pulled to a sitting position. "I was… I wasn't here. I was back there. We were f-fighting again." He tripped over the word, the memory. Silently, she recalled the last time they fought. She'd attached three cores to him to initiate a core transfer. She'd hit him with a round of miniature explosives each time. Each time, he screamed in pain. "And then, there was just… space." He leaned back into the couch. "I was in space again, and I looked down at the Earth, big great blue and white and green ball, it was, and I said, 'I miss it.' I'd been up there for bloody _ages_. And not the ages I'd been up there before I crashed. Longer. So much longer. Lost for good." He said quietly.

She smoothed down his hair, which was sticking every which way from the imaginary struggle and still singed from reentry – proof that whatever he'd experienced had been a fabrication. Everything about him was artificial – hair, skin, eyes, breath – but she was certain he was the most genuine person she would ever meet. He was frightened because he didn't understand. And maybe she didn't really, either. She was the last to claim to know about how he works. But educating him came second to calming him, so she took the gamble and applied what she knew.

"You're safe." She said, softly. "It was just a dream."

He shook his head again. "I- I can't. I'm not… I'm still a robot, luv." He shoved the glasses roughly onto his face when she handed them to him, blinking everything back into focus. "I've never done that before, and I've charged loads of times."

She thought for a moment. "Something must not have worked right when you plugged yourself in. Maybe it opened access to your memory bank while you were charging."

"I don't know." He said, hugging his knees. "But I don't like it." He looked sideways at her. "I think I'll let you plug me in from now on."


	4. Lost and Found

It was a makeshift water pump – she'd made it herself last spring; it was rickety and sometimes the wood pump left little splinters in her fingers, but it was a reliable water source. Perhaps it wasn't the cleanest water, but that's what the water filter at home was for. The only thing about the pump she disliked was how utterly far away from home it was. It was in the middle of the forest that was on the north side of the wheat field, further away from Aperture that even her home was.

The wood joints groaned under her fingers with every pump. Nothing came out at first, but this wasn't unusual. It had made her nervous at first. She had spent time and valuable resources on building the pump because she had been so _sure_ there had been water beneath some ten odd feet of dirt. She'd pumped once, twice, thrice…

The eighth time's the charm, she learned, as an unsteady stream of brown liquid spilled forth into the water pail. This water looked a lot less like water and a lot more like mud, but she'd learned to pump the dirt out of the nozzle before she began collecting water.

Pump, heave. Pump, heave. Pump – new pail.

This was the pattern she adopted, and it was never broken. Once, it had started raining, and though her clothes had soaked through and her hair had matted to her forehead, she didn't stop. It was a warm summer afternoon, she wasn't at risk of catching cold, and the rain filled an extra bucket with clean water without her even having to do anything.

This happened at least once a month, depending on how much water she brought back in one run. She was out there again, for the second time that month which was rather unusual, working the pump as fast as she could as the sun was beginning to paint the sky a spectacularly fiery orange mottled with pink. Stars began twinkling against ink as she loaded the last water pail into her battered shopping cart.

Nothing ever broke her routine… but once.

The sound of snapping tree branches, the ear-splitting crash and the smell of hot dirt and ozone had emanated from a neighboring part of the woods. She needed to know. Not out of curiosity, but out of fear. This was _her_ home. Whatever had happened over yonder, it had been _hot_. The haze rippling the tops of the trees not far off was enough to tell her that. As far as she could tell, there was no smoke or fire, but damned if she was going to let it burn her only home down. Abandoning the pump, she picked up the last bucket, which was a little more than half full and set off in the direction of the sudden heat wave.

She walked for about five minutes, following her nose and her instinct before she found the source. Whatever it was had left a monumental crater in the ground, and it looked like it had skid a couple of feet before coming to a stop. The heat emanating from the crater had subsided, but the smell of ozone was still bitter and strong. She peered over the edge of the crater and found herself looking at the lanky form of a man. She couldn't see his face, but she didn't need to. The tattered Aperture logo on his back was more than enough identification for her.

Wheatley.

Some part of her screamed to turn around and go home, maybe take the pail of that muddy water and dump it over him for good measure. But the longer she looked at him lying in that ditch, the more she found she couldn't bring herself to do it.

He'd once been a corrupt, omnipotent monster that had repeatedly tried to kill her. He'd tried to crush her with 'mashy-spike-plates' and suffocate her with neurotoxin. He'd tried to blow her up and leave her in the void of space. He'd thrown her into hell and dragged her back only to force her to test for him. For Science – the very thing they'd tried to escape together.

But he, at some point, had also been her friend. He'd pulled her from the dying Cryogenic Relaxation Annex, and he'd offered her freedom. He saved her life.

She looked down at the android and sighed, sliding down the wall of dirt to his side. He didn't deserve this, she told herself. He deserved to be rained on. Hard. But even as those thoughts passed, she found herself pitying him.

It was a pathetic sight. He was lying on his stomach with his face ground into the dirt, cracked glasses a foot or two away from him. His jumpsuit was tattered and, in some places – his arms, around his neckline, and patches on his sides – clearly missing, revealing damaged synthetic skin. His hair –indeed, every inch of him – was covered in a fine layer of soot and singe. It was obvious that he'd caught fire during reentry. Chell found GLaDOS's voice playing in her head: "All Aperture technology remains safely operational up to four thousand degrees Kelvin." Was it too much to hope that the heat of breaking through the earth's atmosphere didn't exceed his limits?

She shook the thought from her head, reminding herself that she didn't truly _care_ if he was alive or not.

His limbs were bent at odd angles and as she moved around to examine his face more closely, she saw a fine bolt of electricity surge through him. He may have been badly damaged and unconscious, but he sure as hell felt the malfunction. His whole body convulsed and he screamed, a bloodcurdling noise that made the crows in the surrounding trees take to the skies.

Well. He was definitely alive. There's one mystery solved.

Chell found that her lips had formed a bittersweet smile at the memory, which she quickly dropped.

His body had gone limp now. He was completely out of it and utterly helpless. As the moment presented itself to her, she realized that there was nothing stopping her from unzipping the back of his jumpsuit and shutting him down for good. She'd gotten a glance at the mechanical side of him once before, back in the days when they had trusted each other. It was brief, as he'd said it was embarrassing to have all his wires and buttons exposed like that. But she'd clearly seen the insignia that looked like a hybrid of a commonplace power button and the Aperture Science logo that haunted her dreams. She knelt down and her fingers traced the exact spot on his back where the button protruded.

Chell looked up at the hoot of a night bird. It was almost pitch black out, and more stars had settle themselves against the inky sky. She looked back at Wheatley, his broken form, his sleeping face. She had to make a decision or there was the possibility that they'd both die out there. Nights were ferociously cold here, even in the summer, and she still had her water to haul back to her house.

After a rare moment of hesitation, she took his glasses and slung his arm over her shoulders, hauling him up. It wasn't easy, putting a limp, six foot seven man on your back piggy-back style. His arms dangled over her shoulders and the tips of his boots occasionally caught the ground, stalling them. But she'd never been one to give up on something, even if it was hard.

She scrambled her way out of the ditch and back to the water pump, which she was beyond relieved she was able to find in the dark. She braced herself up against the wagon and began pushing it home, occasionally having to reposition Wheatley to keep him from tumbling backwards and taking them both down.

Not even the light of the moon came to her aid that night, it was just her and the stars, and she couldn't say she minded. The moon was an unpleasant reminder of things she'd rather forget, and the two hundred and three pound man on her back was enough of that. The stars provided plenty of light to find the necessary path that she'd worn into the dirt and wheat.

She was glad she'd had enough foresight to leave the tiny porch light on before she'd left, or finding the house at all might have been out of the question.

Wheatley, that night, was a cacophony of whirrs and beeps and clicks as his systems tried to repair themselves. She watched him closely from across the living room as he rebooted, ready to douse him with water the moment he turned on her again.

He sat up groggily and buried his face in his hands, groaning in evident pain. Every so often he'd give a slight twitch in some part of his body. He _was_ badly damaged and not even his internal maintenance system could fix it all. Chell felt slight guilt at this – self defense, accident or intentional, she was the one who had dealt him so many blows, and she was the one who had watched him be sucked into space.

She tapped him on the shoulder and handed him his glasses. He took them with a muttered thanks and made to put them back on. Before he had them on the bridge of his nose, he gave another violent twitch, causing him to drop them to the floor. Chell moved closer and picked them up for him, handing them back again. He didn't take them. He'd raised his eyes to bend down and pick them up himself, but stopped when he saw her. His mouth opened and closed repeatedly and she merely sat at his feet waiting for him to collect himself. For once in his artificial life, he was speechless.

His eyes flickered bright blue, in between 'alive and well' and 'fatally wounded.'

Chell stood, having made a decision and setting the glasses back on the small coffee table in front of him. Yes, he'd stabbed her in the back – almost literally. But he _was_ helpless. Wheatley flinched as she moved closer to him. He'd prepared some speech – an endless apology, during his time in the exile of Space, but for all the world he couldn't bring himself to synthesize one syllable under her glare. He shied away from her, expecting pain. He knew he deserved it. He knew he deserved whatever she was going to do to him. Shut him down, or bring him back to _Her_ , or whatever she had in mind.

Chell didn't touch him, she didn't attract his attention in any way. He was still looking away from her when she said it. When she did, his eyes went wide behind spider-webbed lenses and he looked up at her in shock, but she was already across the room, making her way up the stairs to her bedroom.

"I'll go into town tomorrow and bring back parts. We'll get you fixed."


	5. Dead

The rain fell hard that day, the wheat stalks bending over under the weight of the water. It was obvious that the weather was terrible, and he was in a bit of an awed confusion as he realized that _she went out in that for him._ She'd kept her word and had woken early the next morning to head into town. She said she would bring back all sorts of odds and ends and they'd make due with what they could and she would put him back in working order.

She came back that afternoon, soaked to the bone and arms full of lumpy tarp. Of course, it was what was under the tarp that he knew would possibly save his life. As the day progressed, he'd felt more and more broken. Something rattled here, something hurt there, and he constantly felt increasingly tired, and every so often, he thought he saw a flashing red battery icon in the corner of his vision.

She unloaded the tarp and he found himself staring at an assortment of odds and ends that he didn't know how they were ever going to help him. He recognized a few things. There was a radio, a roll of electrical tape, a pair of ominous looking pliers and a screwdriver, a soundboard and a box of fuses, among other things, most of which were extremely technical looking. His eyes wandered to a length of black wire that attached to a large black box and then tapered off into a plug.

"I got a look at your port last night," she explained. "And, from what you told me, your internal clock is broken." At this, he nodded in agreement. "You've been in orbit for two years. It's a miracle you're still running at all. This plug should be compatible."

"Well, then, what are we waiting for?" he said, feigning cheerfulness. In truth, he was a nervous wreck, and he wasn't doing a stellar job of hiding it. "No use fixing me up if my battery's just going to die."

"If I plug you in now, without fixing you," she said, looking him in the eye, "It will short circuit your whole system. I'll make it quick. Sit down." She pointed to the couch and he obeyed.

She shifted through the pile of electronics and found one that she felt was suitable: an awkward lump of metal that she tore apart. Wheatley had to look away. He understood that it wasn't sentient, like he was, but the sight of her ripping out its hardware, its wires; the very same material that was inside of him, it was frightening and nauseating and psychopathic all at once.

He didn't know if he trusted her or not. He didn't know if she knew anything about electronics, let alone advanced android AI's. He didn't know, if she _did_ know what she was doing, if she was going to kill him. Though, if that were the case, she could have very well just left him to run out of battery. That being said, he _did_ know that, without her, he was going to die. He didn't have anything to lose.

"Will you stay still?" she asked gruffly, halfway through replacing a wire that gave him vision.

"S-sorry. It's just… awfully frightening, not being able to see anything, you back there, poking about in my circuitry…"

"I'm not going to do anything. But I can't – nnn – fix you if you don't – stay – still!" she grabbed his shoulder and forced him to a sitting position and he nearly fell back on top of her.

"Sorry!" he cried, trying to right himself. "It's just, after everything that happened… If -" he gave a nervous chuckle, "If I were in your position, I mean, I would certainly shut _you_ off."

"I know." She said darkly.

With a _pop_! Wheatley's vision came violently back on, blinding him with sudden light.

He gave a twitch and stiffened. "I – I didn't mean it like that. I only meant -"

"I know what you meant." She said. "Contrary to what you think, I'm _not_ a monster."

"No, no, you don't understand! If I were you, I'd want me shut off. I mean, yes, you did some terrible things, back there but – oh, no. No, I'm -"

Chell stopped, zipping up the android's jumpsuit.

"W-w-wait! Where are you going? I thought you were going to fix me!"

"You're fine for now, we'll test the chord in the morning." She said. Wheatley sat dumbfounded on the couch and watched her climb the stairs.

He sat there, staring after her in horror at his own stupid mouth. When he finally heard the door upstairs close with a ferocious bang, he buried his face in his hands.

Wheatley trembled as he pushed her bedroom door open. She was sitting on the bed, a small book in her hands. She looked up and saw him, immediately setting the book down and glaring up at him. She gave him her full attention, never daring to look away or turn her back for a fraction of a second. He waved half heartedly and moved towards her, noticing that she tensed when he did. He spread his palms in front of his chest. "N-no worries. I'm…I'm not going to hurt you. Couldn't if I _wanted_ to, which I don't. No neurotoxin, no mashy-spike-plates, not even so much as a knife! As – as a matter of fact, I think you're going to… like what I have to say." She could hear his voice crack and her shoulders tightened. He was scared.

She crawled forward to meet him at the end of the bed. He sat and clasped his fidgeting hands in his lap, staring at them intently and never looking up at her. "I know that you think I'm a monster; that I'm just a… a mess of faulty wiring." He choked, recalling the scientists who had worked at Aperture all those eternities ago. "I saw that look, when you came back this morning. It was the look you used to give _Her_. Scary, that. But I don't blame you. In your position, it makes sense, and… I know you want me, ah, gone. I won't fight."

Chell was taken aback at this. Aperture Personality Constructs were programmed with an extreme fear of death – or at least, he was. That's how the Engineers had gotten him to stay in line. Disengagement from the management rail meant death, as did the use of most of his standard-issue equipment. Now, to see him offering her his life was more than a bit of a shock.

That's not to say that he wasn't frightened. She could see it in his face, his movements. She frowned, pulling the zipper of his jumpsuit down, revealing the complex interface and the one glorified kill switch at the top of it all. It was a small circular button that protruded slightly from his back. All she would have to do is depress it, let it click…

Wheatley flinched as he felt her fingers on his back, flipping up the panel that covered the switch, and interjected. "Actually -" he didn't move, though his hands were clasped tighter in his lap. "Before you do, I – I didn't get the chance to say it, earlier, and I don't want to go out without saying it. I'm… I'm _so_ sorry. Sorry doesn't even begin to _cover_ it. I – I never wanted…" he wiped absently at his face. "I tried to _kill_ you, and all you'd ever done was tried to _help me_. I… _do_ understand that, now. Everything I said to you earlier and back at the facility. It was all backwards. _I_ was the monster, not you, and… I'm sorry. Truly."

Chell sat quietly through it all. When he was done, her finger still hovered over the kill switch on his back. He didn't run, he didn't fight. It was almost frightening, such a sharp contrast to the two years of anger and hatred that she'd _thought_ she'd felt. It was the oddest sensation, tears trickling down her cheeks at the thought of what he was willing to let her do to him. Something that, not too long ago, she would have done without a second thought. When she had left the facility, she had felt betrayed and hurt and she'd wanted to hurt him. When she'd seen him lying in that ditch, clearly alive, she knew the moment she made that split-second hesitation that she didn't want him dead. She wanted him back. She wanted _her_ Wheatley and all his preprogrammed idiocy and his waterfall ramblings.

Seconds ticked by on the clock in the hall. The only noise was the erratic whirring of the android's CPU. She wiped her runaway tears and laid her cheek against his back, her palm flat against his shoulder blade. She'd closed the flap, and he'd felt it. "You… You have to press it, it's not going to just-" she stopped him, shaking her head lightly against him.

"We did it," she said softly, her voice edged with an almost hysterical glee.

"S-sorry. Did what, exactly?"

"We're free. The both of us, together. We finally did it. We escaped."

Her arms wrapped around his middle and in that moment, with that one word, 'we', all the fear in his chest – fear of her and of mechanical murder – died.


	6. What Doesn't Kill You

She took care of him. Sure, it was slow going, and things hurt now and then, but she followed through and she'd fixed him, which was more than he could say for many of Aperture's old employees, who had often left him broken, untended to, for weeks. He hadn't expected nearly this much. Very little, actually. It took about three months for her to get him back in tip-top shape, a feat of miracles, really, when you consider that, one, she didn't seem to have any formal training in advanced robotics and Artificial Intelligence and, two, she had only who-knows-how-old toasters and spare parts to fix him with. It was quite amazing, really, and he told her that every chance he got, perpetually thanking her for not leaving him in the rain because, he knew, it would have been _really_ easy to do that and he _promises_ he's not going to make her regret helping him.

But once, they sat on the couch together, Chell working at the nape of his neck, fixing some wires that he'd said had felt out of place. He'd learned to sit quietly as she worked, or else something went wrong and she'd have to start over again and they'd be there all night. She'd told him it wouldn't take but twenty minutes for her to put them back into place, as she had been working on him for some time and had gotten quite good at small repairs like these. He felt the small plate snap back into place as she closed him up, usually a good sign that she was finished.

She gathered her tools and the excess wires and brought them into the kitchen, where she had everything for repairs organized in sets of tiny drawers that she kept on the counter.

Wheatley was still sitting on the couch when she walked back in. He'd shrugged on his shirt – which he'd abandoned his battered Aperture jumpsuit for, so that he wouldn't overheat because of inconsistencies in the temperature – poking his head through the neck hole and adjusting his glasses to see her properly before she spoke.

"Done."

"I noticed, luv, thank you. Feels a million times better."

"No." she said curtly, "I mean, _Done._ You're done. Fixed."

He stared blankly at her, a small empty feeling developing in his chest and his head swimming. Had it really happened so fast? Was he really fully repaired, when it seemed like only yesterday that he woke up on her couch, burnt and broken, fresh from space?

"Oh," was all he could manage as he stood. A small cough. "Well, then. I suppose I'm uh… _off_. Don't want to be a bother." He couldn't keep his eyes from wandering over to the window. It was sunny and bright and maybe he stood a good chance out there in that weather, but he could already see dark, rolling rain clouds peaking over the horizon.

She followed him to the front door, arms folded across her chest, dark hair curtaining an expressionless face. He stood on the porch, his gaze sweeping across the endless wheat field. His non-existent heart sank.

"Where are you going to go?" she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

"I'll find something. Maybe a nice little house like you've got yourself here. But, I'm alive and I'm free, and that's what matters, right?" he said, not wanting to dampen her mood.

"You know." She said, as he took a few steps off the porch. "My nice little house gets lonely."

He looked sideways at her, mid stride. "Your house… What? It's inanimate, luv, it can't get lonely! Besides, it's got you!"

A smile almost formed on her lips. "I'm asking you to stay." She said gently, leaning towards him.

Streams of endless apologies weren't uncommon on nights where something he said reminded them too much of their previous time together, but she would always end the night by telling him how she'd missed him and was glad he was back. She would always settle his uncertainties and help him through life on the surface, something that seemed to come second nature to her, from a lost life of before Aperture.

It was difficult for him, and she could see it. He was bombarded with an entirely new world to take in all at once, without any aid from Aperture's databanks. The first few weeks after the final repair were rough for him. He'd never stepped foot on the surface before, and now it was his world. The odds seemed to pile against him. When he'd fallen against a rock bed and split the synthetic skin of his arm, they'd had to manually find and input the correct code for exterior repair (which also cleaned up the bruises on his face and neck from his landing.). He was constantly being overheated by the direct sunlight – they'd had to adjust his sensitivity settings to take care of that, though he was sure he had lost a bit of the feeling in his extremities.

It seemed like every time they fixed something to get him integrated into this bizarre world, six more problems would announce themselves at their doorstep. He was becoming frustrated and found himself missing his management rail and the cool, calm temperatures of the Cryogenic Relaxation Annex. He became less enthusiastic about the outdoors, usually opting to stay home and 'hold the fort' while Chell went out.

She came home one day to find him sitting on his bed, his back turned to her, twisting the wire of his charger between his fingers. She never acted without thinking, a by-product of her imprisonment in Aperture. But here, in a split second window of opportunity, she found her legs carrying her to him. She sat on the bed next to him and gently took the wire, setting it aside, taking up his hands instead.

"I want you to come with me."

He was surprised at her sudden outburst, but obeyed as she dragged him out of the bedroom. A slight groan escaped his lips as she opened the front door and they walked out, hand in hand. She was adamant about him coming with her, that was for certain, because her grip was iron. Shouldn't have been surprised, really, recalling all the times she kept a hold on him as they plummeted to a catwalk miles below.

The wheat brushed against his shoulders and swallowed her completely. He wasn't sure how she was seeing over it all – he hardly could – but she, as always, seemed to know exactly where she was going. It took them a good fifteen minute walk, during which Wheatley was tripped by invisible roots, attacked by little animals with tails bigger and furrier than their bodies, and nearly short-circuited by a frog that fancied a dip in a puddle.

He sighed in relief when he saw that they'd managed their way to a small opening in a rock face – shelter from the sun which, even on the new special settings, still threatened to overheat him.

He had to duck down to fit in the crevice, but once inside, it was cool and spacious without any hidden obstacles… in the beginning. As they progressed further and further into the cavern, he noticed that it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his footing.

Wheatley scrambled behind her, his feet slipping on the rocks that were wet with mildew. She was _miles_ ahead of him, and with every step he took, that gnawing fear grew. A nervous chuckle bubbled past his lips. "Not that this isn't… fun. But, uhm… where are we actually doing down here? I mean, honestly, we're quite a long way from home. What if we, I don't know… get stuck down here, or something… or something…"

She didn't reply, she didn't even turn around to acknowledge that he'd said anything. Perhaps she couldn't hear him. He knew she would get like that sometimes, completely dead to the world, focused on one thing and nothing else. This only increased his anxiety more. He hadn't seen her like this, this intense, since she'd run the tests.

His audio processors picked up a dull roar that sounded almost like a generator, only, like everything else about the surface, less consistent. As they scrambled through the cave, it grew louder, the rocks grew more slippery, and the air grew thicker. Any more moisture in the air and he was sure he was going to short circuit.

Chell disappeared momentarily around a corner; he followed.

He stood there and stared, both too awestruck and too terrified to move any closer. It was the most massive collection of water he'd ever seen, far larger than the lake to the west of the forest where he'd crashed back home. And it _moved_. It was constantly moving, falling, and he craned his neck to find where the portals were so cleverly hidden to make the water fall perpetually like that.

His eyes darted between her and the waterfall. She was mad! That noisy falling water could very well kill him!

Chell noticed his hesitancy, knowing that he had every right to be frightened of the waterfall, but she promised him, he wasn't in any danger of shorting and, after a good ten minutes of coaxing him out of the stone entryway, she led him over to the bank, where the water gently lapped over the slate, turning it a million different colors at once.

Water sprayed from the base of the water structure, flying about the chamber and making everything wet, but she promised him that they were far away enough not to be bothered by the water.

For a moment they both stood there; she'd come here often, as a sort of metal reinvigoration, and was completely unfazed by the display in front of them, though he was a nervous wreck. She took his hand and sat down on the damp rock, inviting him to do the same and she had him sit in front of her, closer to the bank and facing the monstrous flow of water. Gently, she eased him back until he was lying down, his head rested in her lap. He looked up at her, concern etched into his features. She merely smiled and began combing her fingers though his hair.

The sound of the waterfall drowned everything out, every thought and every feeling, save for her fingers in his hair, burnt as always. He could hardly even hear his own internal mechanisms, but he could feel the erratic whirring in his chest as it gradually slowed. His breathing evened out and had he preformed at any slower a rate, he would shut down. He looked at her with tired eyes, a small smile spreading across his lips. "This feels _magnificent_." He told her, though his own voice was dwarfed by the voice of the structure. She seemed to understand him well enough, she was good at that, and smiled in return, taking his glasses from him.

He closed his eyes and focused everything he had on the sound, the thrumming of the waterfall resonating in every part of his body.

To him, water had always meant certain death. But this was spectacular. The chamber was cool and damp and smelled like the water, it filled him without hurting him, and he found himself lulled into an almost-sleep where everything but the water and Chell ceased to exist.


	7. Heat

Summer in upper Michigan was hot. Wheatley knew this and tried to avoid the outdoors on the days where Chell knew he would overheat. The surface was a dangerous place for a robot, what with all its weather, but he was more than willing to put up with it. He didn't have to brave the elements; he lived in a nice, dry house where it was always an agreeable temperature and he was never at risk of shutdown because of outside influences; she made sure of that.

Chell's wardrobe was always very consistent: pants of some sort and one of those cozy looking tops that had the long sleeves and the necks that bundled to a stop right under her chin. She always wore one, she called them turtlenecks, and it was one of the most stable things Wheatley knew about the surface. When in doubt, Chell wears turtlenecks.

She had all different sorts of turtlenecks – some of them, the necks drooped, others had sparkly little threads woven into the fabric. She had almost every color in the spectrum. Reds and greens and blues – every color but orange. But his favorite was the bright yellow one. It was warm and soft and – best of all – he could spot her for _miles_ in it! Find her in a tick if she ever got lost in a crowd, if they ever found a crowd for her to get lost in.

And when he looked out the front window, he could see her way past the edge of the wheat field. She went out once a week for food and water, and twice a month for wood and fire kindling. He felt bad being that he was usually stuck in the house while she did all those things necessary to keep herself alive. She worked so hard to keep _him_ alive, and all he could offer in return was a 'welcome back!' and a smile.

That being said, it turned out that he wasn't all too thrilled when his chance to help her finally came, a day not unlike any other, where he'd eagerly pressed his nose against the glass of the front window, awaiting her return home. The sun had been ruthless that day, heating the humid summer air to a striking ninety eight degrees Fahrenheit. She'd worn her yellow turtleneck, and he watched happily as her form bobbed through the wheat. Her speed was even and calculated and… slow, he realized as he watched her. And, it seemed, slowing. His brow creased. She was taking her time out there, in that heat?

He could see a flash of brown as the wood she was carrying fell to the floor, followed by the yellow of her top.

His muscles tensed; he watched her intently, waiting for her to pick herself up. She didn't move.

Completely abandoning his previous reservations about the ghastly heat, he threw the door open and plowed into the field, calling her name frantically.

When he reached her she was crumpled unceremoniously in the dirt, half draped over one of the logs she had been carrying.

"Do you _really_ think that this is the _most_ opportune moment for a nap?" he bubbled nervously, kneeling by her side. He gave her a little nudge in hopes of waking her up. When she didn't respond, he panicked. "Listen, I know, sleep. It's, uh, _crucial._ To your survival. But, last time I checked – and I'm pretty sure, fairly certain that it's still there – there's a _lovely_ bed, right inside. Very comfortable. Do you want to – n-no? No. Okay. Up we get. Oof, you're heavy. Not that I'm saying you're fat. Definitely not fat. Just, just… above my weight limit. Which is, admittedly, low. Alright, on we go."

Wheatley left the wood in a messy pile on the ground, an understandable act seeing as how he was already carrying Chell back to the house.

When he laid her on her bed, he could see her face, flushed and blotched with red. And, man alive, was she hot! Sure, when she was angry she would get a little red in the face, and heat up a little, but that was nothing compared to the nuclear meltdown that she was experiencing now.

By chance, it occurred to him that she, too, might be overheating. He'd only had to overheat once to get the message, and remembered how he'd woken up, lying on top of his bed sheets half-naked .He'd learned that Chell had pulled him in from the heat and, in a mad frenzy, had undressed him and turned the thermostat down to sixty degrees to help him recover.

The air in the house was cool, and already the red in her cheeks was giving way to a smoky pink. He figured it wasn't completely necessary to undress her, but turned towards he closet anyway, sliding the door open as quietly as possible.

Her closet was full of the long sleeved tops, and as he scanned the rack, he realized with a jolt that they were _all_ turtlenecks. His chest filled with simulated fear. He didn't want her overheating again, he didn't want the possibility of her being permanently broken.

Standing there, in a bit of a panic as he looked at her severely limited wardrobe options, he had a brainwave.

She came downstairs some hours later, after it had gotten dark outside. She still wore the bright yellow top, but also held a light blue one in her hands.

Wheatley sat at the kitchen table with a proud, lopsided grin plastered onto his face, making him look more than ever like the cat who swallowed the canary. She stopped about four feet from him and held up her shirt, unfolding it before him. "Did you do this?" she asked.

To call it a turtleneck would now be inappropriate, seeing as how turtlenecks would actually need to _have_ necks. This shirt, along with all the others in her closet and hamper, were missing their necks, as well as the sleeves; a jagged line ran sloppily across the cloth where Wheatley had cut it.

He nodded curtly, humming an affirmation.

She stared blankly at him before walking over to the stainless steel waste bin in the corner of the room, pushing on the foot pedal and dropping the shirt in.

Wheatley's grin fell faster than the lid as she stepped away. "No, no, no! That's not what you're supposed to do with that! You – you _wear_ it. To keep you from… overheating…" he finished slowly, watching her face turn that familiar shade of frustrated. "Oh, no. Don't… don't do that. Please?" he begged standing and moving over to her. He wrapped his gangly limbs around her, completely unsure about the whole 'comfort' thing. This was what Chell had done to quiet his panics more often than he'd like to admit. He didn't know if it would work on a human, but at least it was a _semblance_ of a plan, and when her shaking subsided into quiet shiver, he mentally congratulated himself for fixing what he'd somehow screwed up.

"I can't wear those, Wheatley." She huffed quietly. "Any of them."

"Why not, luv?" he asked, still holding her. "Lookit me! No neck, no sleeves, I'm fine! Completely still alive!"

She swallowed hard and pulled away from, rolling up her right sleeve. He frowned when he saw her arm, mottled with darkened skin, rough and foreign, so unlike the pale complexion of her face and hands.

"Uhm…" he started, confusion etched clearly in his features. "What's that? On your arm."

She looked him square in the eye when she said it, but it was without any anger or bitterness of any kind. "Part Five."

Part five. Two words that set him into a dizzying spiral of that memory. He'd seen it from his perch in the center of the chamber, the explosion that had sent her body flying across the room. He'd aimed to kill her, and any wounds that weren't fatal weren't important to him, and he hadn't even noticed the third degree burns she'd sustained. But now that he was getting a good look at her for the first time with a clear head, he saw just how much damage he did. He knew he'd almost killed Chell, but she seemed so alive, so very not-dead, that he'd thought she'd simply healed. Thinking about it now, though, he realized what a stupid idea that was.

"Part Five." He coughed, folding his arms across his chest.

"I hate it." She said, her voice edged with venom that made him look up in fear. "Two years! I got away from it two years ago. I got away from the turrets and the neurotoxin. I got away from _Her_ and I burned that stupid jumpsuit the first day I found real clothes. But I can't get away from _THIS._ " She thrust her arm towards him to emphasize her point. He flinched away, still curled in on himself. She hadn't meant to scare him, and seeing him in such a state instantly quelled her anger. "I was wearing a tank top. Most of my upper body looks like this. I can't stand to look at it. All it does it remind me of-" Was there a word that summarized her nightmare at Aperture? "And I don't _want_ to remember. Especially not now, that you're here."

Wheatley looked at her. This wasn't about fear or forgetting. This, at least to her, was about starting over. With him.

Slowly, he moved towards her. "Do you know what Part Five reminds me of?" he asked, enveloping her again. "It reminds me of how bloody awful I was to you. A proper monster. It reminds me of two years in space And then it reminds me that, despite all that, I'm here now, you're alive, we're both free, and you _actually_ forgave me. And then I remember that I'm the luckiest man alive because of that." He said, rubbing small circles in her shoulder.

She let him hold her, her arms folded across each other in a poor attempt at hiding the scars. She tugged the sleeve back down and Wheatley backed up to look at her, a sharp look in his eyes that scrutinized her. "I know what to do." He whispered excitedly to her. "Close your eyes."

After a moment of uncertainty, she closed her eyes and kept her ears trained on his every move, though she couldn't imagine for the life of her what he was rummaging around the kitchen drawers for. Too late, it wasn't until she heard the snip-snip of the scissors that she opened her eyes.

He stood there, hunched over her in concentration as he cut away at her sleeves. She wanted to protest, to pull away and try to reattach the sleeve later, but before she knew it, he was sliding the disjointed fabric off her arm. He started on the other side, putting the two pieces of fabric on the table before cutting away the neck to join the others. When he was done, he stood back to admire his work, a botched tailoring job on the once-was turtleneck that revealed the mottled scaring on her arms and neck, a messy reminder that filled him with a strong remorse, as well as a strange sense of comfort. They _were_ starting over. Her scars were as much of a reminder of that as they were of Part Five, of nightmares of corruption and betrayal, or of That Place.

He thumbed away a rogue tear on her cheek. "There. More beautiful than ever." He said, smiling down at her.

Chell smiled and hugged him.

That was the last turtleneck she owned.


	8. Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?

"Hello! This is the part where I _kill_ you!" Wheatley leaned forward in the chassis. A warm smile spread across his lips as he saw her expression, still as determined and stony as ever, though he could almost see a glint of fear in her eyes.

A steady rhythm undertones his voice, babbling on as usual, only this time about the various way he'd have preferred to kill her. Her eyes traveled away from the screen, down to a metal sheet that jutted out at an angle, and which was slowly being coated by conversion gel that was dripping out of an unseen pipe.

It was as simple as solving any test, and in the back of her mind, she was almost grateful for GLaDOS's relentless testing. In a whir of blue and orange, metal and angry shouts from the android who was unable to see her, she escaped. She stared blankly at the death trap as He spring it several seconds too late. Her naturally calm exterior covered a hole the approximate size of the facility in her chest.

She ran.

* * *

The corridor was cool and calm and silent, save for the distressed chirping of a lonely turret-cube.

"Oo! I've got an idea!" his muffled voice boomed. Then, silence.

Chell's blood ran cold – had he left her? Maybe he was off formulating another death trap that would take ages to fix and fail anyway.

No. Wheatley had followed her every move through the facility. He wouldn't just leave her on her own, not now that she was so far from his reach.

She took a hesitant step forward; the turret noticed her and chirped happily, starting to crawl towards her, looking for comfort. The poor thing had been tampered with, utterly violated and dropped into a situation that it knew absolutely nothing about. She looked past it; the door was _right there_ , right across the catwalk. She bit her bottom lip as she scanned the area, ignoring the urgings of GLaDOS, who was still firmly attached to the end of the portal gun. She started at a slow jog, her long fall boot clanging loudly on the metal of the catwalk.

She saw it at the last second; she knew that the testing tracks were built with panels, but they were scarce in the inner workings of the facility. Her heels slid on the grated metal as she hit the brakes, skidding to as stop just before the panel crashed into the catwalk, mangling the metal and punching a hole in the wall, sending the poor turret flying.

"YES YES! IN YOUR FACE! I GOT YO-ah, nope."

Chell merely stood there. GLaDOS had gone quiet and the crumbling of the broken concrete walls soon trickled to a stop, the smoke of debris clearing.

"Fine. Let the games begin."

She portaled to the other side of the mangled walkway and ran.

* * *

Running. She was always running.

There was very little cover in the chamber, no place to hide, to avoid the bombs he was throwing at her. Tiny, powerful bursts of fire exploded all around her.

"Am I being too vague? I despise you. I loathe you. You arrogant, smugly quiet, awful jumpsuited monster of a woman. You and your little potato friend. This place would have been a triumph if it wasn't for you!"

The explosions around her stopped, diverted the other way for the moment while he degraded her. "Now I know why she wanted you _dead_ so bad! You do nothing but destroy!"

"Fire detected in the Stalemate Resolution Annex. Extinguishing." Came the announcer's voice. She was amazed she could hear it over the ambient volume of chaos that enveloped them.

The Chassis protected Wheatley from the water that rained down on them, clearing the floor of the chamber and extinguishing the fire in the Stalemate Resolution Annex.

"Go press the button!" GLaDOS cried from her spot in the alternate core receptacle – the very same one Wheatley had occupied hours earlier. "Go press it!"

Chell stood there, looking at the power mad Android in the center of the room. His glasses were cracked and his hair, normally parted neatly at one side, was a wild fly away mess of gold. His jumpsuit was ripped on the arm and he was breathing heavily, almost panting. His eyes were wild, the brightest blue she'd ever seen and literally flickering on the edge of sanity.

"I forbid you to press it!" he growled.

She didn't hate Wheatley, but she hated the man he'd become. He'd been taken from her, corrupted beyond recognition by the Chassis, by _Her_. Everything having to do with Her was monstrous and nothing good ever came out of Aperture – except him, and now he was gone, replaced by this power-mad idiot. She didn't have a problem disobeying and dethroning Him – if only to save him, though he was too blinded by programming to see that.

With a scowl at the angry robot still firmly attached to the throne, she turned and sprinted to the Stalemate Resolution Annex. Normally, she would never dream of putting GLaDOS back in her own body, back in charge, but doing so now meant her freedom, and the chance to give Wheatley the freedom he sought with her in the beginning.

Chell reached out a hand for the button, looked up by chance and saw blinking red lights.

Then, nothing but fire.

* * *

She woke with a start, her hair and clothes matted to her skin by a cold sweat. Her own breathing was jagged and her eyes wet.

A dream.

She peeled the sheets from over her and relaxed when she felt the familiar soft shag carpet beneath her toes. She took a deep breath and moved silently across the room, pulling her door open gently. A glance at the hall clock told her that it was three twenty two in the morning – an ungodly hour to be up roaming the house.

It was dark, but the hall was empty – she'd moved the furniture out of the hall the week Wheatley had moved in – in his state of disrepair, he'd often collapse on his way to her bedroom to warn her, thus injuring himself further when he hit the edge of a table. But that was way back when he'd still slept on the couch downstairs. Now, he stayed in the room down the hall from hers; she just never replaced the furniture.

She pushed her palm flush up against the wood of the door, her other hand turning the cool metal of the knob. The door opened without a sound.

The curtains were drawn, allowing light moonbeams to flit through the room, some landing on his form, lying on his side on the bed under a light layer of sheets; a black cord protruded from the back of his neck as he faced her. He'd occasionally charge at night and let Chell revive him in the morning. The light fell on his face and she could see how peaceful he looked as he slept, just as she'd left him several hours earlier.

This was her Wheatley, her best friend and her other half, the only person who had ever cared about her and made her smile. It'd been so long since she'd taken him in, and she was still plagued by night terrors, but nothing could change the way she felt about him, no amount of Mashy-Spike Plates or Neurotoxin.

She smiled and closed the door.


	9. Coin Operated Boy

It was nights like this that she enjoyed the most. Nights when the seemingly endless workload to keep herself alive ceased to exist and there was nothing to be done but sit there and just revel in the fact that she was _happy._ How couldn't she be? She had a house, her freedom, ample supplies to last the winter, and she had him.

Wheatley sat next to her on the couch in front of the fireplace, with one arm draped over her shoulders and his head tilted back slightly to rest on the top of the couch cushion, eyes closed. His breathing was deep and even, but she knew he wasn't asleep. He couldn't sleep. He wasn't Human, as much as he looked and acted like one. He was an Android, Aperture technology.

Aperture. That word still set her nerves on edge, hyper aroused her. She'd purged her life of everything associated with That Place, but there they sat, completely comfortable together. She looked at him curiously as she remembered when GLaDOS had let her out of that Hell; She'd also given her a bit of a going away present. She could still hear the faint rumbling as it came up the elevator shoot. The door opened and out flew her best friend: the small metal cube with a single pink heart on each side, the Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube, burnt and charred from its time in the incinerator. It made Chell cringe to think just _how_ the cube had gotten into the incinerator. But as much as she loved the cube, it made her sick to look at as she spent night after night on her trek to a civilization that she had no way of knowing was not there.

It hindered her journey, causing her to pause in the middle of perfect walking conditions to rage and cry and sleep the day away in a manic depression as the reality of what she remembered of her life hit her.

She'd left the cube in the wheat fields, miles and miles away.

Every time she looked at it, she was reminded of that place, her own personal nightmare. And she was reminded of how truly _alone_ she was, without a clue as to what she was doing out on the surface.

Little things reminded her of terrible times. Colors, smells, even simple words, and she did everything she could to avoid remembering.

She wasn't alone anymore, and she cared about him more than she'd ever cared about the cube. But what made him so different? He was the biggest reminder of them all, a living, breathing personality core. Not to mention, the very same personality core who had repeatedly tried to kill her. Why, when her own companion cube made her sick to her stomach, was she okay with him?

It was something that had often troubled her sleep in the first few weeks he was with her. She had planned to fix him and turn him out into the world to fend for himself, but as time went by, she caught herself smiling before she fell asleep, happy to think that he'd be there in the morning. It had scared her, but she forgot all about her fears when she was with him. His senseless ramblings distracted and amused her.

Suddenly, she found that she wasn't alone any more. He'd come for her, woken her out of Cryo and made the clean tiles and recycled air seem a little less lonely. They were tackling those Hellish puzzles again, but _together_ this time. It was a funny little analogy that made her lips tug into a bittersweet smile, happy and fearful all at once. She was falling so easily into the comfortable roles they'd played for one another There. What happened when they hit a Stalemate?

The thought grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard the first time it crossed her mind, but she'd constantly remind herself, he'd constantly remind her, they weren't There anymore, she's so safe and he's so, so sorry.

There were nights when they would just sit together – He, unnaturally quiet with his arms around her in a silent promise and her, face buried in her knees as she recalled with overwhelming accuracy everything that had happened. The world ceased to exist and she was plunged into an imaginary world of sights and sound and memories. Sometimes, his grip was the only thing tethering her to reality.

She began dreading the day when he was fully repaired, the day he was to leave, to go God knows where and hopefully survive. She didn't want the day to come. She hated herself for it, but once the major repairs were done – the ones that took care of the constant pain he was in – she lied. She lied when she came home from long trips into the abandoned city. When she walked through the door and was met with Wheatley's eager questions, "Have you found it yet? The part?" she lied to him. She told him that she was still looking. Meanwhile, the piece was concealed delicately in an old handkerchief in her pocket. She hated herself for it, but she knew the repairs could have been done in a few weeks.

Despite her stalling and her lies, the day came. Her voice was heavy when she said it to him, when she told him he was done. And as she followed him to the front door, she told herself that had been the plan from the beginning, and there was no going back: She was going to watch him leave.

He seemed eager, at first, but his expression portrayed a sincere worry. She figured he had every right to worry: he was suddenly faced with a world that could kill him as easily as the rain fell. She swallowed hard and watched him take a few steps off the porch.

She didn't know where the words came from, but it was the best she could offer in her state of surprised confusion. When he didn't respond at first, she stood there, dumbfounded at her own mouth. She'd just offered for him to stay, to live with her.

He'd muttered something about the house being inanimate and not being able to be lonely and she smiled. He didn't understand. It took a second, but she eventually became confident in her decision and flat out asked him to stay with her. And he'd accepted.

Despite the comfortable routine they'd slotted themselves into, the docile familiarity between them, she couldn't help but still wonder as she looked at his relaxed features, what was it that made him different?

Her eyes traveled over the delicate curve of his jaw line. Neck, shoulders, hands.

Metal and elastic and plastics. Lights and synthesizers. He wasn't real, but she didn't mind. He was hers, real or not. She cared about him and he cared about her. He hated seeing her scared or upset or hurt and that was real enough to her. She, in turn, sheltered him in the same manner and they were just generally protective of one another.

She tried to convince herself that there _was_ no solution, devilishly hidden in the man sitting next to her, but that same nagging feeling of uncertainty and doubt crept back into her mind. There had to be something. There was always a solution.

He half opened an eye, peering at her sideways. It was then that she realized she'd been staring at him for some time. He lifted his head as she turned hers away from him, tying to convince him it was a passing glance.

"Something on your mind, luv?" he asked, his voice low – something that didn't happen too often from him.

Slowly, she turned back to face him and smiled. She tucked her legs beneath her and laid a hand across his chest. "Thanks." She said, causing him to frown in confusion. When she laid her head against his shoulder, he decided that whatever she'd meant, she'd meant it in good spirits. His arm wrapped around her in a sort of half hug and she gently drifted off to sleep against him.

Her last conscious thought was that she still didn't know what made her so comfortable with him, despite everything, all the bad blood and even worse memories that, unbeknownst to him, still kept her awake at night.

And that, whatever the reason, it didn't matter.


	10. Fire

Wheatley took a deep breath and opened her bedroom door as quietly as possible. No need to frighten her prematurely with any loud noises. It was dark, but she still had a small lamp on near her bed, and that was enough light for him to move by. He crept towards her, watching her sleeping form very carefully for any sudden movements. She lay on her back with her head tossed to the side. Her deep chestnut hair, freed from the familiar pony tail, was splayed across the shockingly white pillow, creating a swirling contrast. She looked so happy, just to be asleep, he wondered if he should just leave her…

He shook himself mentally, astounded at the thought. He couldn't leave her, he couldn't. It wasn't an option. His programming, irreversible as it was, told him that she just looked so _peaceful_ , it would be wrong to wake her up. But something underneath that, something weaker and _smarter_ , it demanded him to wake her.

His hand touched her shoulder, still unsure. His other hand curled in a fist around a blanket.

_Do it._

He shook her gently. "Chell, wake up. You – you have to wake up." He bent over her, whispering. He saw her expression, the corners of her mouth twitched up at the sound of his voice, but she turned over, facing fully away from him. His hand still rested on her shoulder. He bent closer to her.

"No, you have to wake up, _now_." He hissed in her ear.

In her still half-asleep state, her subconscious brought her back to The Lair at the sound and tone of his voice. Her eyes shot open, her mind thinking it was fully awake, alert and aware. She was greeted by fire, hot orange flames that jumped out at her. Intensifying her waking nightmare, she kicked at the covers, kicked at him as he tried to pull her out of bed. He managed to wrap his fingers around her arm, to pin her, thrashing, to the bed. This was the part where he killed her.

His other hand came to her face. She tried to slap him away, but he forced her to look at him. Her eyes widened with realization when their gazes met. This was not the man who had wanted her dead. He'd been long gone, and this was her friend, his features etched with concern and a subtler fear. This snapped her back to reality.

Wheatley was often frightened, but he had a pretty good sense of when something was truly dangerous. Critters and the such, unruly weather, he was able to recover from fairly quickly and, as time went on, he reacted less and less to things of the sort. But the look on his face now was similar to that of when GLaDOS had crushed him half to death. He was in trouble, they both were.

Chell stopped her struggle and jumped to her feet the moment he released her. She could see him flinch, ready to receive another blow and to try to restrain her again, but it wasn't needed.

Her lungs protested violently at the air, which was thick with an unpleasantly heavy smell that stung her eyes, resulting in a choking cough.

"We have to go. I'm sorry, we have to go." He moaned repeatedly.

She wanted to ask him why, tell him that it was three in the morning and ask him what was going on, but he smothered her voice as he threw the blanket over her shoulders and tugged it over her head before wrapping himself protectively around her.

She couldn't see a thing, he had her cocooned in the blanket and it was all she could do to keep herself from stumbling over her own feet, let alone his, he was walking so close.

The smell wafted into her room as he opened the door, choking her.

All her senses were cut off. She couldn't see, and Wheatley was practically draped on top of her, but none of that was what scared her. The thick scent of smoke and burning wood filled her nose, and the crackling of fire drowned everything else out, even his voice in her ear. The fire in their home was all she could hear.

Her hand found his as tears slipped down her cheeks. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't happening.

His hand swallowed hers, giving a reassuring squeeze that kept her from slipping into something that resembled hysteria. Still, the thoughts of denial sped through her mind, but she answered every one with the same calculated answer: Our house is on fire. Get out.

It was very possibly the best thing at the moment, the fact that he'd draped the blanket right over her head, that she couldn't see a thing, that she couldn't see everything she had worked for, her whole world, burning before her. Wheatley held her closer as they made their way through the house. Flames threatened to break through the safety of the walls and smoke curled in ghastly ribbons from the ceiling. His grip on her was iron as he led her through the burning halls. There was no way in Hell he was letting her go, even for a second.

The heat was almost unbearable. Not quite enough to overheat him, but it was still uncomfortable, and Chell's desperate coughing from underneath the blanket only made their situation more urgent. Everything was so disoriented in the house, he wasn't quite sure which way was out. He knew they were in the living room, then came the foyer –

There! There was the front door! He maneuvered them around the couch, through the small hall and out the door. Only then did he let go.

Chell threw the blanket to the ground and stumbled off of the porch in a mad frenzy. She was mildly aware of the downpour and the faint sound of thunder that roared over the burning roof of the house. Rain mixed with her tears, matting down her hair and clothes as she stopped in the wheat and spun around, looking for Wheatley in the mass confusion of the fire lit night.

He'd let her go, where was he? He wasn't with her – it was raining, he wouldn't be…

She spun back to face the house, seeing him in the doorway, swatting a rogue ember off of the back of his hand with an irritated yelp.

She screamed for him, the sheer volume of the noise ripping at her throat. Her feet pounded the bare earth as she raced back to the burning structure.

He was watching her, and this alarmed him. He didn't want her in the house. He called back to her, telling her to stay out in the wheat, that he'd be fine, to just go! But she bounded up the steps to the porch and made to stay with him.

Fire jumped between them as the roof of the porch began to collapse under the influence of the flames. She screamed as it crashed between them, blocking her path and his escape. The fire spread across the wood of the porch deck, forcing her back into the wheat. She watched as their house was slowly swallowed by the greedy flames, but it was hardly the house she was scared for. She looked about her, trying to find the blanket. The rain could make it wet enough for it to be a sufficient cover while she went back in…

The fire made the air ripple as she looked back. Lying under the fallen piece of roof was a corner of the maroon afghan curled and frayed under the heat as fire ate it as greedily as it ate the roof of the house.

She couldn't see him, he was gone! He was gone again! Chell's breathing became deep and ragged. He couldn't be gone again, she'd just gotten him back!

Lightning illuminated the scene for all to see, and Chell felt as though the bolt had struck her, and not a miserable spot of wheat miles and miles away. The night's events, previously disastrous and cruel and random, suddenly made sense. Their house was the only thing for miles, besides wheat. It was the highest point for miles around, until you hit the forests that surrounded them on nearly all sides like an ocean of foliage, but it hadn't always been that way. There used to be a tree, just behind the house, but all that was left of it now was a large, flat stump where she'd hacked it down. It hadn't been a very formidable tree, it came down easily enough, and that was why she'd taken it down. In the first months before she even really knew she was truly _free_ , she knew she needed to survive. And that was the only tree, she'd thought, within reach. Before she fixed the house, before she got the gas up and running again, to heat the house through the harsh winter, the simple little fire place had sufficed nicely, but the _wood_ , she needed _wood_ …

But that was gone now and, in retrospect, she was surprised this hadn't happened earlier.

She lied down in the wheat, in the mud and the puddles, half hoping it would drown her and her stupidity, and cried.

The fire raged for hours, peeling the paint off of the small cottage and causing the roof to collapse in on itself in some places. It was nearly impossible to get in, now, even after the steady downpour had drowned the flames and put out the fire. Even the rain had stopped, now, leaving nothing but the heavy morning air, still thick with smoke and a sick, aching feeling that had settled itself quite comfortably in her chest. She still laid in the mud, curled in on herself in a ball, hands in loose fists at her face, shaking and in a near-comatose state.

The house wasn't too terribly damaged. Pieces of the roof were missing, and the whole thing had a thoroughly _baked_ look to it – she couldn't say what the inside looked like. She wasn't even sure if it had been touched. The most she'd seen of it was a fleeting glance before the burning porch had separated Wheatley and her. But all these thoughts were lost on her, lost in sleep and nightmares and whisked away.

The noises were carried to her by the wind, but she didn't hear them. None of the outside world existed to her, and at the moment, that was the way she wanted it. None of last night mattered, none of it had happened, and she wasn't going to slip from the safety of sleep so easily.

The shifting of broken, charred wood wasn't enough to drag her from the safety of her subconscious, nor were the low mutterings, annoyance at being momentarily stuck in the wood. The soft footsteps weren't enough, or the light breath in her ear, nor were the trickles of water that escaped from under her eyelids.

But the gentle hands that lifted her carefully from the mud, holding her close to him, the soft whirring in his chest and the way he pressed his mouth to the top of her head, muttering senselessly on about how it was all fine, broke her barrier to the world and woke her. With a shuddering gasp, she pressed herself closer to him, burying her face in his chest.

"If you're… you know, not feeling up to it, not ready to go back in there, we could just sit here. Forever. Like this. I'd be… perfectly okay with that. Honestly. So, that's an option. Option A: Sit here. Do nothing. Completely up to you, luv."


	11. Feed a Cold

The rain was relentless all month, driving torrents that kept him inside. Chell still had no choice but to go out for food, leaving him home alone for hours on end. Consequently, Wheatley now knew the number of doors and windows in the house and that there were exactly 242 floorboards in the living room.

She'd come home, having trudged through the wheat in the dark and the rain and the mud, sopping wet and empty handed.

The rain made it impossible for her to reach the small, abandoned town to the west, flooding the creek and making it dangerous to pass.

Wheatley began to worry. He knew that humans needed a certain amount of food, or else it was permanent shutdown. It was the fourth day that Chell came home without food, Wheatley came back into the living room with a sympathy towel.

She dried off briefly and began up the stairs to go change her clothes. Halfway up the stairwell, she sneezed.

"Bless you!" Wheatley called from the foyer.

* * *

The Android had come to know what to expect. At six o clock in the morning, she'd be downstairs. He would join her and they would discuss the upcoming day, and whether or not it was safe for him to go with her. When the answer was no – which it usually was – he'd help her get ready before they went their separate ways and he did _whatever_ to keep him from going out of his mind with boredom.

She didn't like to break her routines – he'd learned that when he'd spent an entire day with a grumpy Chell because he'd broken her axe on the day she needed more wood. So he didn't understand why, when he ventured downstairs one morning, she wasn't there.

Wheatley understood that they cared for and trusted one another, more now than they ever did in Aperture, and had long ago realized that she wouldn't abandon him on a whim. Regardless, her absence was still alarming, to say the least. He climbed the stairs slowly, looking back over his shoulder every now and then just to make _sure_ she wasn't already sitting at the kitchen table.

Her bedroom door was still closed, he saw as he peaked the stairwell, and upon further investigation, he found that it was also _locked_.

Their house had a peculiar floor plan (or so he'd been told. He honest to God couldn't find anything wrong with the floor!). There were four rooms on the second floor – Wheatley's bedroom, a bathroom, Chell's bedroom, and another bathroom. The last two were joined somewhere in the middle, but each still had its own door.

Normally, Wheatley would be more than content with never going anywhere near a bathroom, what with all the water nonsense. But _her_ bathroom door, the one that led straight into her room, was unlocked. He entered nervously, keeping far away from anything made of white porcelain, as if it might jump up and short circuit him of its own accord, and was happy when the cold tile gave way to a soft, warm carpet.

She was there, in her bed, so _that_ was something. But at the same time, that discovery was also very unnerving. It was more than obvious that something was wrong.

"Chell? Good morning, luv! Yes, yes, it _is_ morning." He added as she gave a groan. "Up and at 'em, right? Oh. I suppose not, then."

She'd curled into the fetal position and pulled the covers far over her head, cocooning herself in a layer of white linen.

Uncertainly, he moved to her side and pulled her to a sitting position, then took a seat by her.

Her head swam as he pulled her up. She knew he was talking to her – she could hear a concerned buzz that she was sure was coming from him, but she wasn't hearing a word of it. All she could focus on was the constant churning of her stomach and the miles between her and the bathroom.

She gagged. Maybe it was her overly sensitive stomach, or maybe it was her imagination, but he smelled like raw plastic and hot motor oil. She planted a hand firmly on his chest and pushed him away, turning her head.

The concern in Wheatley's voice neared hysteria. "Chell, it's me. What's the matter? You can tell me, I wont… What happened?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her with some difficulty, as she kept struggling to push him away. Eventually, she stopped resisting, instead clutching a large clear bucket to her stomach.

Suddenly, her head pitched forward and her shoulders heaved as she wretched into the bucket.

He was disgusted and confused and terrified all at once.

He'd never had a lot of experience with Humans. After all the time he'd spent with them in the Relaxation Annex, you'd think he'd be some sort of Human _expert_ by now. Truth was, all the humans he'd constantly watched over were asleep the whole time. They didn't do much.

Even so, he was fairly certain they weren't supposed to be doing _this._ All that green fluid pouring out of her, the ghastly noises, the way she looked positively _miserable…_ she was dying, she had to be. Nothing else could be that unpleasant.

Wheatley buried his face in her neck and rocked them back and forth (Chell didn't think she could have possibly been more nauseous. Silly her.). Her stomach gave another unpleasant protest as his rocking continued. That combined with the possibly imaginary smell and the pounding in her head, she would have welcomed sleep a long time ago, but now he sat there with her, whispering weakly that she had to be okay, that he didn't know what he'd do without her. She was confused at his antics, but simultaneously reminded herself that this was _Wheatley_ , after all. She wanted to smile, to tell him that she was fine and just needed sleep, but every time she opened her mouth, a wave of fresh nausea washed over her, effectively shutting her up and turning whatever prelude of a smile she wore into a grimace that only made him cling tighter to her. He pressed his cheek to her shoulder, her flushed neck hot against the cool, pale skin of his forehead. She could hear his quiet mumblings, unable to make out words.

What a sad pair they were: probably the last Human on Earth, sick to her stomach, and an anxiety ridden android who was apparently clueless as to the fact that, as sweet as his intentions were, he really wasn't helping.

Chills started to rack her as the winter air and Wheatley's inevitably metallic feel got to her.

He'd seen this before. The uncontrollable bodily functions, the shaking – this was neurotoxin. Every part of him stiffened, leaning away from her and taking her face in his hands. "I don't want to alarm you," he started, his voice tense and an octave higher than normal. "Probably harmless. Probably. And, again, nothing to worry about, but I _think_ you might be experiencing some effects of the neurotoxin. Which, now that I'm saying it, probably isn't as harmless as I might have led you to believe."

She shivered again, grimacing and clutching her stomach.

"I'm so sorry," he ducked his head against her. "I think… I think you're dying, luv. I've seen it before, the – the scientists, back when they were still building _her_. Did this, then keeled right over. Oops, you're dead. It wasn't pleasant, really." He said, his voice cracking. She couldn't answer him, as she threw her head forward and vomited again. Wheatley waited for her to pick her head up before holding her closer. "Though, honestly, two and a half years, that is _some_ delayed reaction. I'm sorry," he repeated. "I wasn't then, when I nearly suffocated you with the stuff, but I am now. Really, I am. And I… I just want you to know…"

She shook her head, swallowing another wave of sick and scooting away from him. He seemed a bit hurt when she broke his grip on her. She felt like vomiting again, but she wasn't going to let him beat himself up. She took a deep breath in hopes of settling her stomach enough for her to speak. It worked, though it made her dizzier in the process. "It's," she grunted, the sudden speech making her woozy. "not the neurotoxin." Her words were slurred and waterfalled out of her mouth. "I'm just," she hiccupped. "just sick. The flu."

Wheatley sated at her, confused for a moment. He was so sure this was what happened to a Human before they died of Neurotoxin poisoning. How on Earth could a little stomach virus produce the same side effect? Albeit, her symptoms were a thousand times less than the scientists he'd watched die, but then again, her poisoning had been two years ago. "Are… are you _sure?_ Absolutely _positive_?"

She nodded, looking up at him with a weak smile before turning her head and vomiting again.


	12. She Remembered Everything

Wheatley felt he'd never get the hang of these Human things. Granted, he wasn't _truly_ Human – a grand impression of one, maybe, but Chell didn't seem to mind. She was an endless reservoir of patience, where he was concerned. He couldn't count how many times he'd caught himself on fire or set fire to something in the house, or both, but she simply put it out and let him try again. Cooking was an ordeal in its own. It was fun – he was atrocious at it but it was fun, and she tried to teach him.

She understood that it was new to him, a learning experience and things weren't going to go smoothly. They took things slow – she taught him how to use the oven and the stove, and to tell when the burner was hot enough to burn his skin (which, they soon learned, had a burning point very similar to human skin: Hot.) She took care of preparation, rinsing vegetables under the tap – a task that he flat out refused to do, under reasonable circumstances – and taught him how to cook.

It was a learning experience for both of them, really. Chell learned that his 'revelation' after the first core transfer had destroyed whatever self confidence he had possessed prior. He was easily frustrated by tiny things, like not being able to roast the potatoes properly, and after the first few tries, he'd be more than ready to throw in the metaphorical towel. Chell wouldn't let him, consistently cleaning the burnt out of the pan and setting it back on the stove, ignoring his assertions that he couldn't do it, that he'd just end up burning the rest of the food. She'd just give him a smile and tell him to give it another try.

Wheatley stooped down to pull a pan from the cabinet as Chell turned the stove on. They'd graduated from low level root vegetables and she was letting him experiment with searing meat today. A bit of a grizzly experience, as she took the chunks of raw flesh out of the freezer and dropped them on the counter in front of him. Thankfully, he wasn't supposed to touch it because frankly, it looked gross. No, the neat chunks of rabbit were going in the pan he was currently holding.

Chell reached for the pan as he held it out to her. She glanced up at him, but the smile she wore quickly turned to concern. His eyes were closed, brow furrowed and teeth clenched behind trembling lips. His hands were shaking and the artificial color in his cheeks had left him. With a clatter, the pan crashed to the floor, coming to a rest in the corner of the kitchen as he braced himself up against the countertop.

Chell stepped over the pan and up to him, resting a hand on his arm as he brought a hand up to his face, knocking his glasses askew. His voice was low and dry and thick with something she didn't recognize from him. "M-man alive," he whispered, swallowing hard. "Something I might want to mention, luv: All Aperture technology has a homing device. No, don't look at me like that, it's not Her," he huffed, when he saw the look of shock on her face. Chell didn't know what she would do if GLaDOS ever wanted him back. His breathing was labored, as if he'd been running. "It was so we could find one another, around the facility. Obviously no use now, but it still works! You know, I wasn't the only one who was sucked into space. It's one of the other cores, it has to be. They broke orbit and they want to come back home!"

His eyes flew open and he bolted out of the kitchen, almost knocking her over. He made a mad dash for the front door, calling for her to keep up. Still in shock, she clicked the stovetop off and ran after him. Any other day, she would have tackled him to the floor before he could make it out of the house, but the weather was mercifully pleasant. No harm in him being out of the house. Eventually, she matched him stride for stride, despite his absurd height. He kept talking, and she wasn't sure if he'd stopped since he'd made it outside. "…And I can _do_ it, I _know_ I can!" he called as he ran. "That night, when I crashed, I don't remember a bit of it, the landing, but my systems do! I – I didn't tell you this before, but I shut down, only temporarily, and I'm fine now, right? Don't remember a bit of that, either! But my black box saved my coordinates! I can bring him right back to where _I_ crashed! It's all saved, right up here!" he tapped a finger to his temple.

They passed the old water pump Chell had built and careened into the familiar clearing Chell had stood in that night. Nothing could ever make her forget. No amount of brain-damage could erase those moments from her memory, she thought as she stood there with him – the man who'd fallen from space. She remembered everything. Every feeling, every sensation, every last detail down to the birds that had fled from the trees.

She remembered everything; she never thought she'd see anything like it ever again – the rippling of the heat and the smell of ozone only made her legs pump faster. It was all so surreal, to be experiencing it all again, to be going back to Wheatley's crash site, where their life together had begun.

Of course, his landing had been chance, or fate, or a miracle, or whatever you fancied to be in charge of bizarre coincidences like that. But this time was no coincidence; Wheatley himself had conducted it.

"Oh-ho-ho, wouldn't it be brilliant if it was that little space core?" he laughed, looking back at her as he ducked under a low branch. "Then we could take him home and you could fix him up, just like you did me! He'd be a million times better off than he was before, and maybe we could even b-"

Chell had to pitch forward and grab his arm to keep him from walking straight into the shoulder high ditch in the ground. This was, in fact, the same spot she'd found him two and a half years ago. She remembered everything about this place, but she definitely didn't remember the broken trees or the smell of burning rubber masked by the heat. These subtle differences made her stomach churn, but he barely seemed to notice.

The two peered over the edge of the crater to find the core – the young boy she remembered from the facility, with his ginger hair and striking yellow eyes.

Her breath caught as he gave a booming laugh. She remembered _everything._ Before she could stop him, Wheatley was already sliding down the side of the ditch. She had no choice but to follow.

"Remember me? Your old Space buddy?" He knelt by Space's side and turned him over gently. "Hey, don't worry, mate. This lady here's going to-" he stopped.

Space's head lolled to the side as Wheatley turned him over. The child's gray eyes were wide open, staring sightlessly straight ahead at his old space companion. There was a large dent that ran from his chest to his jaw line that had popped his shoulder out of its socket. In certain places, heat had caused the synthetic skin protecting his inner circuitry to curl and peel away.

Wheatley screamed, dropping the smaller Android's body and stumbling back, scrambling to the edge of the crater and pressing his back against the dirt wall. Chell rushed to him and caught him by the arm before he fell to the floor. He was shaking worse than before, now, and she could hear the erratic whirring of the internal fan. They sunk to the floor together, her arms wrapped tightly around him. She cradled his head on her shoulder, one hand running back and forth through his hair.

He drew his arms around her and let out a dry sob, unable to produce tears. He was never letting go of her, not now. He screwed his eyes shut and focused on the way she felt, tried to trick himself into thinking that she was all there was, that they weren't sitting in the dirt with a dead core only a few feet away. But always, always the image of the mangled bot crept its way to the front of his mind.

His grip tightened on her shirt, hands balling into fists around the material. "I shouldn't have-" he choked. "He could've landed safely, somewhere else, I shouldn't have – God, why can't I just…?"

Chell felt a slight pain as her ribs began buckling under his grip but said nothing, she only held him tighter in return. "Listen tome." She said firmly, shifting her position so that she could lift his gaze to hers. "You couldn't have known. It worked for you, you were fine, and you're right, it should have worked for him. Maybe he was already hurt when he broke the atmosphere, there's no telling what happened to him, but I know it wasn't your fault." She could hear her own voice cracking, pity and sympathy for her friend and the poor core lying lifeless just a few feet away.

Wheatley trembled under her, silent, for nearly a half an hour.

When his shaking sobs became quiet shivers, he picked his head up from the crook of her neck and rested his chin on her shoulder. "How can you be sure?" he whispered. "When I was specifically designed to screw things up?"

"Because none of that matters out here." She whispered back. "This isn't about how efficient you are, how well you're programmed, Wheatley. This is something _new_ , where you're a _person_ , not just some machine. Listen, please: You _don't_ screw anything up. You're _not_ a moron, and It's _not_ your fault."

They sat there for several hours more as Wheatley gradually calmed. The sun had dipped beneath the horizon, leaving the sky an impossible black, without so much as a single star to smile at them. Instead, lightning bugs came to their aid, filling the ditch with a warm blaze that contrasted sharply with the cold blue glow of Wheatley's eyes.

He sat in front of her, with his back turned to his 'space buddy.' She kept her hands constantly either on his shoulders or touching his face or hair, just so that she could keep him from looking back at Space.

They talked. They talked about going into town; they talked about cooking and about management rails. They talked about anything that would keep his mind wandering. She watched as his irises – which had constricted to pinpricks upon the discovery of the body – gradually began filling the space behind his glasses. He was slowly coming back to himself, which meant a much more rational companion.

They talked until he was nearly himself again. They talked about exploring past the abandoned city, about finding a way to keep him safe from the elements, and about maybe even finding people. He smiled vaguely, telling her that he hoped they _did_ find other humans, for her.

Chell loved living with Wheatley, but she couldn't help wanting to meet other people, even just so she could finally know that she wasn't the only human left, as she'd suspected for some time. Maybe, she said, they could even move into a _real_ community.

Wheatley's smile dropped at this. "We can't leave him," he said, his eyes glowing a noticeably less intense blue. His voice softened. "We can't leave him here, when we go home, we can't just leave him."

She brought her hand back up to his face, cupping his cheek in her palm. His skin was still warm to the touch, evidence of his anxiety and the overload it had nearly caused. "You're right," she whispered, keeping his gaze trained on her.

* * *

They stood in an open clearing, far from the crash site, a small mound of dirt piled at their feet with a slab of white stone placed dutifully at the front.

Wheatley let go of Chell's hand as she leaned over and placed a makeshift candle on the tiny grave. When she stood, Wheatley looked up at the sky. He found it amazing how the sky at the crash site had been heavy and black as motor oil, but the sky here felt much lighter and millions of stars twinkled down on them, as if you were seeing into the very furthest regions of space.

"He would have liked it here," he said, quietly. His voice still held a heavy sadness for the other core and still a hint of terror at the day's events, but there was also a glimmering approval at the spot they'd chosen.

Chell took his hand again and brought it up to her face, pressing her lips against the smooth synthetic skin on the back of his hand.

Wheatley pulled her closer and sighed as they turned and began to make their way back to the house.


	13. Mist

Chell yawned. It had been a tiring week, almost nonstop with no sleep. Every minute of the day was spent tending to the half-demolished core. Something of his was always malfunctioning, even if had been fine thirty seconds ago. Voice chip, internal fan, you name it, it malfunctioned. Perhaps his body was just now adjusting to the shock – both physical and mental – of being back on Earth, but things were getting ridiculous now. She shook her head as she closed the tiny fuse box concealed under his left shoulder blade. It wasn't just that he'd blown a fuse. It was that he'd blown a fuse, she'd replaced it, and it shorted right out before she even had the chance to close him up. Four times. Consequently, they only had two fuses left – which she was sure they would be using sometime in the near future. She mumbled something about going out the next morning, as it was already ten fourteen at night and pitch black out.

Wheatley nodded, grateful for her patience. God knew he couldn't do half these repairs on his own. Provided if he could even open that hatch on his shoulder, or any of the others on his back, he couldn't exactly see what he was doing, couldn't just swivel his gaze one eighty like those older personality spheres could do. Shame, that. He needed her, and he realized this, especially as his body became more and more protestant to the sudden gravity bestowed upon it. Parts he didn't even know he had were malfunctioning, sparking and hurting and shorting his other systems out.

The core put the small box of fuses back in the cabinet, careful not to drop or crush them because he had a bad feeling that, at this rate, he'd need those last two before the night was out.

Chell sat on the edge of the small couch in the living room, grinding the base of her palms into her eyes. She didn't look up, but she felt the seat cushion next to her shift a bit as he sat down. "Thank you," he said.

She sighed in response and her lips stretched into a tired smile as she lifted her face to him. He was looking a thousand times better, just in the last month. He was no where near fully repaired, but at least most of the evidence of reentry had been cleaned away. His hair, however, still remained singed, dusted with a black that would never come off. She'd tried, multiple times over the last week, taking a damp cloth and giving his hair as much of a wash as his robotics would allow, but after somewhere around her sixteenth attempt, he'd asked her to just leave it. The cloth was beginning to grow more and more satiated with water every time they sat down to try to clean him up, and it had begun making him nervous. Chell had looked at the rag, noting that, while it wasn't remotely dripping, she hadn't squeezed as much of the water out of it as last time. With a huff, she surrendered. It was his head, not hers, and if the rag made him nervous, she would comply. It was only a minor detail, anyway.

"No, really," he said, interpreting her silent 'you're welcome.' " _Thank_ you. I… I could've _died_ , if it weren't for you." He moved to place a hand on her knee, a physical representation of the fact that he was talking to her. He didn't know why he stopped halfway. Normally, he loved physical contact, a grab of the wrist or a pat on the head. After all the time he spent alone, wandering the corridors of the Relaxation Annex, after two years of silent exile in space, it was so comforting to know that someone was finally there.

But the look on her face made him stop. She was a naturally quiet person. He rarely heard her utter more than a few words at a time, and that's when he's _really_ prying. But this silence, the smile he'd received, wasn't an 'I'm-choosing-not-to-talk' smile. It was more of an 'I'm-not-really-listening-but-I'm-going-to-be-polite-and-pretend-like-I-was' smile. Yes, he was a bit put out by this. But she'd been up for bloody _days._

She shifted her gaze from his face to his outstretched hand, hovering in mid air between them. She pointed. Quickly, he snatched his hand back. "Oh that? Nothing. Not important. Listen," he said to her. "I'm a handful, and you've done a truly _brilliant_ job of fixing me up. Seriously. That cake stuff She went on and on about – if anyone deserves the imaginary cake, it's you." He grinned lopsidedly and his grin only widened when he was able to evoke a small one from her. "Good, we agree!" he clapped his hands together and stood. "Now, one more order of business: I _think_ it might be time to recharge."

Chell twisted away from him and leaned over the arm of the couch, opening up a small drawer in the side table. He tapped the tip of his boot against the drawer, the sudden action jerking the handle out of her grip and slamming it shut.

"Not for me, luv." He said, lifting her off the couch.

* * *

The morning came, and Chell grabbed her coat and the axe that was nestled among the various umbrellas she'd found over time and set out the door with Wheatley in tow. She turned and gently pushed him back, off of the porch and closed the door behind her with a smile.

The android darted to the window and parted the curtain. He pressed his nose against the window pane, fogging up the glass with his artificial breath and watching her disappear long before she made it to the edge of the wheat. It was one of those days when the clouds couldn't decide if they wanted to be in the sky or on the ground or somewhere in between, making it bloody hard to see anything.

During these times, Chell would go out on her own, into that ridiculously vast world – not that he thought she couldn't take care of herself! Quite the contrary, he knew she was far more qualified for it than he was.

Nonetheless, every time she went out in conditions less than favorable for the android, he'd follow her right to the front door and watch her as she was engulfed by the wheat fields that had grown rampant around the house, fretting once she was out of sight, wringing his hands together and pacing the house, _ALWAYS_ worried that something had happened, she'd just up and left – frankly he couldn't blame her, him just falling out of the sky onto her doorstep, who would _want_ to put up with that? – because she'd been gone for _far_ too long and he knew, he knew she wasn't coming back and he was _ALONE_.

He'd spent so long being alone that it shouldn't have been the frightening prospect it was. Maybe it was the thought of finally having someone who cared, who helped you, someone to talk to and acknowledge you who wasn't catatonic or dead.

He squinted at her form receding into the foggy darkness of four thirty in the morning. It _did_ look cold out there, but it didn't seem anything like the intense cold that they'd experienced a few weeks earlier that almost froze his hydraulic fluids in their tracks, seizing up his joints, and had left that deadly white-frozen-water on the ground.

She'd disappeared completely. She really shouldn't be out there in those conditions; there was nothing but miles and miles of wheat between their house and the city where she scavenged. She could so easily get lost, and never return and he was there, stuck in the house and unable to help her in any way.

His processors began whirring faster, the robotic equivalent of a quickened pulse as he threw the door opened and ran out onto the porch. "Chell!" he called, blindly. "Chell!"

He groaned inwardly. The clouds were a lot denser than they seemed from inside. He ran forward, further from the house. She was lost in this. She _had_ to be. He knew he would be if it weren't for—

He suddenly spun on the spot to face the house, which had disappeared like Chell into the murky depths of the fog. "No! No-no-no-no-no! Oh, where'd the house go?" A panic was rising fast in him, but he pushed it down and tried to stay calm for her; he turned back and swallowed hard. He had to find Chell. Things were bad now, but when he found her, everything would be okay – it always was.

"Chell." He choked out, his voice lost on the expanse of wheat field.

* * *

Chell had spent the better part of the morning scavenging in the evacuated city to the north of their home. With a new box of fuses tucked safely away in the breast pocket of her coat, her rusted shopping wagon bumped over a rock or two as she made the three hour trudge home through the dew-sticky grain. The fog hadn't lifted yet, as it was only nine AM, but the visibility had increased considerably, allowing a thirty foot radius.

"Ch-chell?" she heard, through the mist. Her gray eyes widened at the sound of his voice. "Ch-chell? Is… is that you? Is it? Chell?"

She spun around in the fog, trying to figure out where his voice was coming from.

Perhaps she was hearing things. It certainly seemed like there was no one out here. Besides, she thought, continuing on, Wheatley would have to be half mad or have found a sudden bravery to venture out of the house in this weather. He hardly liked it out when it was _windy_.

It came from behind.

A tangle of limbs wrapped around her, pinning her arms down so that her elbows dug into her sides. She gave in involuntary huff at the sudden impact, but he didn't seem to notice. "Oh, you're alive! Thought you'd gone and gotten yourself lost – this! All this white stuff, being a general nuisance, can't see _anything_! I-I can't even find the _house_ anymore!" His shoulders heaved forward, relaxing a bit, though he was still tightly attached to her. "Now we can go home, right?" he laughed nervously. "Lead the way."

As he let go and grabbed her arm instead, Chell's expression softened, having gone from shocked to bewildered to bemused. She patted his arm consolingly and led them back to the house.


	14. Epiphany

Chell slowed almost to a stop. The new corridor was badly lit and she had to squint down at her feet to make sure she wasn't going to fall over any destroyed pieces of the facility, because there seemed to be a lot of those lying around, especially now that she was nearing, as He called it, His Lair. She silently scoffed at this – it almost seemed like he thought of this as a _game_. Suppressing the urge to kick something, she raged at the thought. This was no game. This was her freedom at risk and, very recently, her life. He was a monster, plain and simple. She vaguely missed the bumbling bot who had guided her through the ruins of her prison what seemed like an eternity ago, but she had nothing but a bitter hatred for this twisted version of her Wheatley.

With a violent shake of the portal gun, she silenced the sardonic potato, who hadn't stopped patronizing her since the 'death option' incident. She silently simmered, remembering how he'd presented her with a "perfectly serviceable death _option!_ "

He'd asked her, basically, to lie down and die.

Suddenly, her foot swung out almost of its own accord, the cool material of the long fall boots meeting the steel resistance of a mesh gate. A hollow ringing filled the small hallway. Before it died from the air, however, it was rejuvenated, the rattling cutting through her in an unnatural way. She spun back towards the gate to see –

Tiny fingers gripped at the mesh, intertwining themselves easily through the loops, holding on like a lifeline.

"Lady!"

She squinted closer. There was a young boy trapped behind the gate of the mesh. He looked to be about ten, twelve at the most. His face was small and round, topped by a shock of deep auburn hair that stuck straight up. She moved closer to the boy, feeling a momentary swell of happiness. Another human! This poor child, how long had he been here? Certainly not as long as she had, but perhaps he'd wandered in from the surface and gotten himself into one messy situation after another and somehow ended up here. She reached out a hand and his tiny fingers latched on to hers.

Too late, she saw the striking yellow irises that met her slate gray ones, the only betrayal of his inner robotics, much like her tormenter in the next room, only this one was genuinely frightened, not unlike how Wheatley had reacted when GLaDOS had plucked him so violently from the control panel. His eyes were wide, his artificial breathing heavy, and his grip on her iron. He tugged anxiously at his leg with his free hand, and she realized he was stuck, the poor thing. Core or not, he was terrified and alone and young, and she couldn't just leave him there. He seemed to be buried under debris that had fallen through the shoot: messes of wire and curves of metal, peeling skin…

She stopped trying to free the little core, stepping backward and gasping at the sight before her. They were bodies, piled high behind the mesh gate. Decomposing bots, dead cores whose eyes had gone gray long ago. Synthetic skin peeled and hung from their hollow faces, exposing curves of metal and wires sticking erratically out of their cheeks and empty eye sockets. Some were charred, or missing limbs. The yellow eyed core whimpered pitifully. It had been left here to die, she realized. Her eyes fell on another core. A young man with pink eyes that must have been bright and alive at one point. Now, they were dull and half lidded and a faded color that shifted lazily up to look at her.

"Lady, help. Please? Lady!" He struggled madly to free himself from underneath the corpses of cores that had been dumped on top of him.

She retched her fingers from his tiny grip, stumbling backwards to witness the sheer mass of death of those who had never truly been alive. There were scores of them, most too far decomposed to recognize them clearly.

The yellow core whimpered again and tried to free itself from the pile. Her eyes traveled away from him, down to a green-eyed bear of a man at the bottom of the pile, propping himself up with some difficulty on his elbows, gazing interestedly at her as the little one kept calling for help.

These were corrupt cores, bots that were engineering failures, that had been programmed wrong, that were useless…

A cold glow from the next bin caught her eye, pulling her closer to the exit.

Oil trickled profusely from his gaping mouth, mixing with his messy blonde hair as it ran up the side of his face. His gray eyes, behind the spider-webbed lenses, were wide open, staring sightlessly directly at Chell, who stood there in shock.

Wheatley.

Of course. It made sense! Wheatley was never fully functional. He was broken, useless just like the others, the dead cores his lifeless body was lying on top of. His limbs were splayed twitching and sparking as his internal systems sputtered to a stop.

Chell backed herself up against the wall, sinking to the floor. Her eyes never left his gaze, until she threw her head back, her body racked with laughter.

He was dead!

Her shoulders jumped at every intake of breath and water streamed down her face at the sheer intensity of her joy.

There were footsteps, and the door at the end of the hall opened.

"Luv?"

With a gasp, she opened her eyes. The cold, narrow hallway was replaced by her own living room. The sunlight streamed through the open windows, her laughter replaced by shuddering gasps and a soft voice in her ear.

"…I – honestly, I don't know what was going on in that clever little mind of yours, but whatever it was, it's over. You're okay, luv, and I'm right here." The voice was given a physical presence as she realized that she was being held against him, his arms folded across her chest.

She was lying on the couch, propped up against him; she drew her knees up and curled herself around his arms, grasping at him like a life line, in a similar manner to her dream-Space. Her whole body shook as she fought back the urge to cry.

His voice came again, soft and concerned and so _painful_ , as she conjured up those ghastly images of him lying behind the mesh – finally, _finally_ dead, the harsh laughter that rang in her ears. Tears forced their way down her cheeks and she let out one choked sob.

He froze under her grip. She wiped the water quickly from her face with the back of her wrist and pulled away from him. She couldn't get him wet, not even a little bit; she couldn't risk it, not for a little thing like tears. Instead, she grabbed a pillow and buried her face miserably in that. Her shoulders shook with every muffled sob, and Wheatley drew closer to her, unsure of what had brought on her sudden bout of helplessness. He grabbed her shoulders and held her as she cried, not sure of what else to do.

"Hey, hey! It's over, luv, whatever happened – it was just a dream! What-? Why don't you, erm, stop leaking, and tell ol' Wheatley what's got you in such a – a-" She'd removed a hand from around her middle and laid it on top of his on her shoulder. "Oh." He breathed, holding her tighter and resting his cheek on her shoulder.

He was so close to her, he could just make out her faint mumblings. He ducked his head towards her so that her lips were at his ear.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please, I didn't – God, I'm so sorry, I never meant…"

He laughed rather nervously. "What are you apologizing for? You – you've done nothing wrong!"

He winced – his attempt at comforting her only made her state worsen. She leapt from the couch, away from him and over to the window, arms still wrapped loosely around her middle. He turned towards her, still on the couch, afraid to move any closer to her.

"Chell." He said, softly, leaning forward, "It's me, and whatever you dreamed about – and I have a fairly good idea about what – it's done, and it's never coming back, ever, ever again. I _promise_."

The woman at the window grimaced, placing a hand at her mouth. "It's not – I know. I know, Wheatley." She hiccupped, still looking away from him. "It's not about… that."

"Then what?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but thought better of it. She couldn't get that _image_ out of her head, and that sickening feeling that it was _her_ fault, _she_ did that to him. She killed him, she'd wanted him dead –

No.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. His eyes were an unnatural blue, alive and well, and he and Chell were closer now than they'd ever been in that poison place. Things were so different now… but that didn't change the past.

She didn't respond; she couldn't.

"Chell, you don't have to –" he stopped suddenly as she gathered herself and strode towards him. She was acting unusual, how was he supposed to react but by sitting there and waiting to see what happened?

She stopped in front of him and stooped over, pressing her lips to his forehead. She held them there for a moment before breaking away.

He merely sat there, dumb-founded as he watched her dart up the stairs. He wanted to call her back, he wanted her to explain and he wanted her to know that whatever had her so upset, it was going to be fine!

But she was gone…

* * *

Chell locked her bedroom door and took a small leather bound book out of the top drawer of the bedside table. She searched around for a pen for a moment before settling on her bed, cross legged with the book in her lap, hunched over as she wrote:

_'Not a second goes by that I don't regret every moment of that day…'_


	15. Diary

'Not a second goes by that I don't regret every moment of that day. Not the friendly, warm moments, but the obvious, blaring painful ones that seemed to make up the majority of our time together.

I used to think that it was cruel and pointless, when She let me out, to wander the Earth alone. She knew there was no one left, or at least, no one I could find. Sure, if I searched long and hard enough, maybe I could find someone, if there's anyone left. I used to hate it, being alone, being the last one, being _alive_. What was freedom if there was no one to share it with, no one to celebrate with? But I overcame that, and it brought me here, to this little house in the middle of nowhere, living with an android – my closest friend.

It's almost frightening to think that those horrible moments that give me nightmares have blossomed into these wonderful ones – but it's a funny kind of frightening, like the bottoms-up sensation of falling sideways through a portal, or being flung through the air by a Aerial Faith Plate. It's a _nice_ feeling, being able to sit in complete silence with him as he rambles on about the complete silence we're experiencing, and not be scared.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe any of it happened. It's easy to imagine that we've been this way all of our existence, that there was no Aperture, that there was no War that brought my species to an end, that there was nothing wrong with any of this, and this was the way it had been, forever. But he's proof that whatever my imagination's telling me, it isn't true. He makes me forget it all, but he's also the only reason I remember any of it. He's his own little paradox, in a way.

But I suppose it's best. Something tells me that it would be wrong, dangerous somehow, to forget everything that happened. If not for me, then for him. I'm not sure what makes me feel that way, but I feel I _owe_ it to him, at least to remember.

It's not all bad, remembering. Yes, there were some truly _awful_ things that happened, and yes, it still hurts to remember. But there were also some rather wonderful moments that a piece of me doesn't want to lose. Meeting him, that definitely tops the list, especially considering where we are now. I would never want to lose that, and if having met him, having been woken up in that God-forsaken Cryo Chamber by the robot that would turn out to be the man I'd happily share the rest of my life with, meant a _million_ years of testing, I'd grab the gun and trot happily on to the next chamber.

It's a little funny, that. I'm _more_ than ashamed for it, and God knows I'd never admit it, but _this_ , this little life we've built for ourselves, I never imagined, back there, that we'd end up like this. When he was guiding me through the decrepit facility, down half-crumbling catwalks and down pitch black corridors, I had no intention of taking him with me. As we were carrying out his escape plan, I was formulating a plan of my own. Once we were finally free, I did _not_ want him with me. No matter how kind he had been, he was just another part of That Place to me, and I was ready to take off at the first ray of real sunlight and leave him wherever we got out.

I had a hunch that I could outrun him, once we were free because, good God, he was terrible on his feet. What would one expect, when he'd been sitting up on that rail his whole life? But, I noticed when he fell on top of me in a tangle of limbs, once off his rail, his legs were next to useless until he really got the hang of walking, which seemed like it would take quite some time. So of course I could take off like a shot the moment we got out, and never have to see him again.

But that was before the core transfer. The first one, I mean. After that, after I woke up in the dirt and the fire under who knows how many miles of earth, in lower Aperture, he meant less to me than the damned turrets did.

He doesn't know it, but those first few months, once I realized that being with him was the happiest I'd ever been, that he was _so much more_ than just a part of That Place… When I cried in front of him, this was the first time, he thought it was because of Mashy Spike Plates and Neurotoxin and him. But it was because of the things _I_ had done to him, not vice versa.

For one, I never caught him. He _could_ have died coming off that machine. Who was to say? I was just about as clueless to it as he was, and I remember being distinctly frightened when he said that. I'm honest with myself – I _did_ try. As he hurtled towards me from nearly twenty feet above my head, I honestly thought the Gun would hold him or, at the very least, break his fall. That doesn't, however, change the fact that I did _not_ catch him.

But what hurts the most is knowing that, in that space of time between somewhere in Lower Aperture and my return to the modern testing track, I had thought it was a _great_ idea to let GLaDOS short Him out with a Paradox. To me, it was the best idea in the world, if it meant He was dead afterwards.

It hurts more now, having actually written it out. It's nothing short of monstrous. Everything I hated about Him is reflected, right there in that sentence, in me. I'm sorry.

I can't say it enough. I tell him every chance I get, but he just smiles and laughs and asks "What for, luv?" every time. I can't bring myself to say it, even now.

And even after the testing, His testing, I had no intentions of helping him. She had this wonderful plan: One year in the incinerator, one year in Cryogenic Storage, ten years in the room She built where all the robots scream at you, for him. Freedom for me. Nothing could have been more accommodating.

But it's not like I didn't notice that something was _very_ wrong with him. He wasn't himself, and his earlier words began to eat away at me, about the Itch. Every time that thought struck a nerve with me, that maybe he was as trapped as I was, but then He'd shove me into another chamber for some sick pleasure that still gives me the creeps, and the thought was whisked away as fast as it had come.

It wasn't until we were face to face with the room literally exploding around us that I understood just how badly he'd been hurt. He was screaming at me, but none of the hurt or fear in his voice was lost in the volume. Every accusation that he punctuated with another bomb, he honestly believed. He honestly thought I'd played him the entire time, that I thought he was a moron, inadequate, broken. He thought that I'd hoped he'd die falling off the rail, that I hadn't cared – or worse, was _happy_ – when she'd crushed him, that I'd found him a nuisance and nothing more than a means of escape, and that I'd finally gotten sick of him and was trying to kill him. And the worst part was, he was right. To a degree.

I hadn't thought he was a moron at first. To be honest, if I'd been alone, testing with Her again, I would have just tried to shut her down the way I had the first time. I would have ridden out the tests and made it right to Her chamber, and done I don't even know what. But _he_ knew! He had this brilliant plan, and he knew how to make it happen, even if he wasn't the _best_ at hacking. I won't say it wasn't there from the beginning, because it was, but whatever it was, it didn't make him an idiot. It only made him more Human, to me. But the moment he was connected to the Chassis, I saw how it changed. It was like, whatever it was, programming or hardware or whatever, it was all _dragged_ to the surface. It was like every part of him that he hated the most, that he'd tried _so hard_ to suppress, was amplified, mixed with something else, something darker. Something of _Hers_ that was more paranoid and more corrupt than he'd ever been.

Despite the increasing paranoia, he came to most of the right conclusions, but for all the wrong reasons.

No, I hadn't planned any of this and I sure as Hell hadn't planned on working with Her. But I realized, as I dodged the bombs, that I _had_ been using him, pretty shamelessly, too.

But I _hadn't_ cared when She'd nearly killed him. Sure, there was a pang of pity, but not nearly as strong as it should have been. I was so concerned with the Tests, the empty incinerator hatch She was going to drop me down, too preoccupied with being plunged back into my own little Hell. But I knew I could handle the tests. He, on the other hand, was lying up there in the rubble an inch from death, and I was nonplussed.

And then, there I was, flying through portal after portal, up on the catwalk with the intent of doing… what, to him? Killing him? _Saving_ him? I could still do it, I could still save him, try to make up for the way I'd treated him, try to make the way I'd hurt him go away. All it required was a push of a button…

And then I remembered _why_ I was there, and not already on the surface in the sunlight and the breeze and the real air. I remembered how close I'd been to freedom, and then how close I was to death.

For someone who was built specifically to make terrible decisions, that was a pretty well laid trap.

I was angry again, and any idea of saving anyone but myself went flying out the window. To Hell with him. To Hell with GLaDOS and Caroline, to Hell with Cave Johnson and all of Aperture. To Hell with Science, to Hell with Testing, to Hell with bombs and buttons and the gun that was still within reach. I was done playing fair, I was done caring about these _things_ that weren't even really alive.

When I saw my chance, I took it. It was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done, with the exception of letting Aperture put me in an orange jumpsuit. He was sucked out of the room and I literally went flying after Him. He was the only thing that tethered me to Earth, to _life_ and He asked me to let go.

And then the tables were turned. Suddenly, he wasn't connected anymore and _I_ was the one keeping _him_ from hurtling into the black nothingness of space. He began pleading with me, he told me to hold him tighter, not to let go.

The only difference was, it was _my_ grip, not his, that connected us.

It wasn't an accident, I let him go. In that second that my fingers released from his wrists and I saw the unnatural blue of his irises constrict to pin points, something gnawed at the back of my mind, chorusing with him, "Grab him, grab him, grab him," and I didn't.

I didn't regret it, then, and I don't know if I do now. It might sound terrible, but with everything that happened, if I'd held on, would we be where we are now? I like where we are now. I never thought I'd be so comfortable, so _happy_ with him. I don't remember ever being this content, not even in the vague memories of sensations from before Aperture. I know I must have had some sort of life before testing, but I can't imagine what it could have been like, if it wasn't like this.'

The door clicked shut from downstairs, startling Wheatley. He closed the small book with a snap and stuck it back in the night stand drawer, pulling his charging cable out and slamming the drawer closed. That had to be the worst thing he'd ever read. It confirmed everything he once thought was true – she hadn't cared – and to be honest, it made him feel like he was in fatal overload, as he made down the steps to greet Chell.

She smiled and hugged him, and he returned the gesture as she asked him if he wanted to go out to the small field they'd found earlier in the week – the weather was beautiful. He grinned tightly and nodded, afraid to speak until he'd gotten all his emotions in order. He shouldn't have read that, she told him not to, and now he knew why. A part of him was hurt (A bit of a lie – most of him was hurt, after reading that) to think that she'd kept that from him for so long – longer, had he not snuck into her room and read it for himself.

But another part of him was somehow _calmed_ by her words. He didn't want to admit it to himself, or her, but the effects of the Chassis didn't exactly wear off easily. It'd been such a long time since he'd been connected to it, but he still had those nagging doubts, those terrible ideas and the looming paranoia embedded into his systems. Reading that simultaneously irritated and calmed it.

Once upon a time, she couldn't have cared less about him – She _had_ tried to kill him. But the diary entry was also so reassuring, hearing the way she talked about them, together.

He thought back to all those confused moments where she'd apologized senselessly, as he often did, and they suddenly made so much more sense. He hoped that her tears, the nights where she cried herself to sleep next to him, were sincere. He thought, maybe now she really _did_ care.

Slowly, he came to the conclusion that she must. Things were so different now, after all this time they'd had together. She cared for him, she did. She had to, after all this.

As they stepped off the porch into the enveloping sunlight, he glanced down at her hand, her fingers intertwining with his, her body angled slightly towards him in that comfortable resting stance she took near him.

He smiled softly.


End file.
